AMAZON FOREST ALMOST CERTAIN TO DIE NEXT YEAR, DROUGHT TO SPREAD TO U.S.

[Dems Will Win]

I guess that guy in the sheet on the corner with the sign was right. The end of the world is near.

The Amazon deforestation must end and it must be reforested as quickly as possible! And we are definitely now going to have to use Crutzen's plan to put sulfur particles in the stratosphere to restore Earth's temperature to normal ASAP!!

CRUTZEN'S PLAN:

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/08/71613

A disaster to take everyone's breath away
12:00AM Monday July 24, 2006
By Geoffrey Lean



MANAUS - Deep in the heart of the world's greatest rainforest, a nine-day journey by boat from the sea, Otavio Luz Castello is anxiously watching the soft waters of the Amazon drain away.

Every day they recede further, like water running slowly out of an immense bathtub, threatening a worldwide catastrophe.

Standing on an island in a quiet channel of the giant river, he points out what is happening. A month ago, the island was under water. Now, it juts 5m above it.

It is a sign that severe drought is returning to the Amazon for a second successive year. And that would be ominous. New research suggests that one further dry year beyond that could tip the whole vast forest into a cycle of destruction.

...

Studies by the blue-chip Woods Hole Research Centre, carried out in Amazonia, have concluded that the forest cannot withstand more than two consecutive years of drought without breaking down.

Scientists say that this would spread drought into the northern hemisphere and could massively accelerate global warming with incalculable consequences.

The research - carried out by the Massachusetts-based centre in Santarem on the Amazon River - has taken even the scientists conducting it by surprise.

When Dr Dan Nepstead started the experiment in 2002 - by covering a chunk of rainforest the size of a football pitch with plastic panels to see how it would cope without rain - he surrounded it with sophisticated sensors, expecting to record only minor changes.

The trees managed the first year of drought without difficulty. In the second year, they sunk their roots deeper to find moisture, but survived. But in year three, they started dying. Beginning with the tallest the trees started to come crashing down, exposing the forest floor to the drying sun.

By the end of the year the trees had released more than two-thirds of the carbon dioxide they have stored during their lives, helping to act as a break on global warming. Instead they began accelerating the climate change.

The Amazon now appears to be entering its second successive year of drought, raising the possibility it could start dying next year. The immense forest contains 90 billion tons of carbon, enough in itself to increase the rate of global warming by 50 per cent.

Nepstead expects "mega-fires" rapidly to sweep across the drying jungle. With the trees gone, the soil will bake in the sun and the rainforest could become desert.


Deborah Clark from the University of Missouri, one of the world's top forest ecologists, says research shows "the lock has broken" on the Amazon ecosystem and the Amazon is "headed in a terrible direction".

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10392615&pnum=0

Please recommend so something gets started on this.

[dipsydoodle]

1. Thanks

So sad.

[thunder rising]

57. BS...this is the same story as was put up this time last year

I read this same story last year. So this is the second year of the second year of the drought. (notice the date of the article) Last year the story included pictures of very deeply exposed river bank and dry tributaries.

I benchmarked this story to see if this year the Amazon was indeed dying. Nope, just the same story.

I was and am very interested, but but we don't need BS we need honest assessments and events.

[niceypoo]

69. Post your source from last year

...waiting...

[The Doctor.]

71. Observation isn't your strong point, is it?

Is there a current story yet?

Methinks your dismissal is premature.

[RedCappedBandit]

2. k+r

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

[Selatius]

3. At this point, I doubt there is anything that can be done to stop the Amazon's destruction

The immediate problem is lack of rain. Even if all logging is stopped tomorrow, the forest will still die without rain.

[pitohui]

10. yeah, the time to take action was decades ago

we have not developed any serious technology to bring or stop the rain, it is a shame that this wasn't pursued much more aggressively starting in the 50s and 60s

it seems like they tried cloud seeding to stop hurricane betsey, it didn't work, so the gov't just threw up their hands and said "oh well"

we are not suddenly going to learn how to control the weather and bring the rain in just one more year so it is out of our hands now

too bad we didn't have a manhattan like project to control the weather rather than dead ends like travel to the moon, which ultimately led nowhere

maybe if not for time wasted on various silly wars, we could have afforded both, who knows, but it's too late now -- we are nowhere near any control of the weather

[poverlay]

60. Maybe we are. Think about it: Bush hates black people + weather control = Katrina! n/t

[Junkdrawer]

4. “We are entering a period of consequences.” ....Al Gore...n/t

[Mabus]

37. And the reservation for our "nature hike through the Book of Revelations"

has been confirmed.

K&R

[hatrack]

5. "Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences."

A very appropriate quote from Robert Louis Stevenson.

[The Stranger]

6. Congratulations, your planet is dying.

Ask the GOP if Jesus is going to come save us.

[mediaman007]

7. They are more interested in abortion, war and tax cuts!

[bdamomma]

14. and their OIL.

[ProudDad]

70. he's coming to save some of them

http://www.raptureready.com/

[ryanus]

8. That would be really bad

[Dems Will Win]

11. Tell me about it

[candice]

9. China is importing soybeans from the Brazilian former rain forest...

as a way to import water, according to an article in the New York Times. For some reason, frozen soybeans are packaged and shipped to Trader Joe's in the U.S.

China is having problems feeding its own citizens. Why is farmland being paved over to make cheap stuff for the West at great environmental costs to them and everyone else? Selling out the future of the climate as we know it for any consumer item that isn't absolutely necessary doesn't make sense.

[SoCalDem]

16. Petro-dollars and "trade"

:grr:

[Deja Q]

38. Sad.

Getting people out of poverty is one thing, but allowing them to breed to ridiculous numbers is entirely something else!

BTW - with MSM articles promoting Chinese (and other countries') development of 'middle classes', it's a load of bunk that everything is being done "for the west".

[bdamomma]

12. has the environment got a lot worse since * took power.

because he doesn't believe in anything, not even the Kyoto Protocol. just my two cents.

[Zodiak]

13. Please do not take this as a "no big deal" post

But throughout geologic history, the Amazonian rainforest has appeared and disappeared many times. Sometimes N.A. is joined to S.A. Sometimes it is not. As a result of this, there have been numerous influxes and effluxes of animals betweent the two continents.

Our planet will not die with the loss of this great rain forest, but it will seriously screw with the humans. And yes, the rate of change is greatly accelerated due to human activity.

[EstimatedProphet]

44. Thank you for this. I want to add:

The fact is, it is quite possible, likely even, that the Amazon basin has been permanently changed. That however is far different than saying it will die next year. It takes a long time for changes like that to occur in a permanent fashion.

We're destroying the Amazon rainforest. But we're not destroying it that fast.

[Dems Will Win]

62. You're right it would be more proper to say it will begin dying next year

but then the mega-fires begin soon after, within months or a year, and then large swaths WILL be dead. The rest will die and burn soon after that if the drough does not reverse.

We need the Global Thermostat and massive reforestation, and really focus on this!

[DS1]

15. One could start by making forest burning punishable by death

extreme, yes. oh well

[sanskritwarrior]

23. Can we still execute people for murder

or just environmental crimes........... :eyes:........

[leftchick]

17. "A Dry Horizon for the Amazon"

:cry:



http://scienceline.org/2007/06/27/ipcc_environment_amazon_philllips/

A Dry Horizon for the Amazon

Climate changes are pushing rain forests to the point of no return.
By Kristin Elise Phillips, posted June 27th, 2007.

It is stunning to think that the Amazon – a humid land of frogs, anacondas and parasitic strangler figs – could disappear in this century. Environmentalists have been predicting dire consequences for the rain forest for years, but a new report from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finds that the Amazon could be on an irreversible course to extinction. Some researchers add to the report’s predictions saying the conservative climate models used in the IPCC’s projections underestimate regional drying.

Two big scenarios threaten the Amazon and the life it contains, and both have human activity at the root. One is forest die-back caused by human land use, including logging and smoke released by fires, says Daniel Nepstad, an ecologist at the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts. The other is an overall warming of the Amazon climate, which most researchers attribute to human activity.

“By the time we get to 2025, 2030, at least half of the Amazon Basin will be cleared, compromised because of severe drought and associated fire, or logged,” Nepstad adds.

The IPCC’s report predicts that by 2050, parts of the Amazon will be completely decimated. The report also emphasizes a high likelihood of extinctions and significant biodiversity loss associated with the change of landscape. In fact, according to the IPCC’s projections, global warming alone could lead to the extinction of between 20 and 30 percent of the world’s plants and animals–many of which reside in the Amazon–by the end of this century.

The IPCC used a combination of several different computer models to make predictions about the fate of the Amazon. But a number of researchers claim that the report underestimates the speed with which the rain forest will be destroyed and argue that the panel should have relied more on a specific model, the Hadley Centre Climate Model, for making projections about the Amazon Basin.

[ORDagnabbit]

18. ZPG!!! zero population growth! n/t

[JudyM]

21. Yep, I'm with you. n/t

[GliderGuider]

29. NPG - Negative Population Growth!

Sponsored by ExxonMobil, Mother Nature and our own DNA. Coming soon to a planet near you!

[ORDagnabbit]

31. when I propose that people tend to get a bit huffy at me. :) n/t

[GliderGuider]

35. You've noticed that, have you?

One tiny little mention that the Earth's carrying capacity without oil might be only one billion people, and the accusations of genocidal intentions begin to fly....

[IDemo]

58. Saw a "Thank you for not breeding" bumper sticker last year

and decided to look at the website: Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

Disclaimer: The creator of this post, while a non-breeder, does not condemn others for breeding.

[redqueen]

19. This is the price for the Regan voters' greed and selfishness.

And for the continued avarice / apathy embraced by far too many.

Ah well... the earth will survive after our cancerous existence has ended.

[glitch]

36. Yep. 1980 was the turning point. "We" chose the wrong path. nt

[Deja Q]

39. Communism won.

Not China - if everyone wants to be treated the same, global extinction is a pretty good way of going about it.

[redqueen]

40. Huh?

How did communism win?

:shrug:

[mmonk]

20. Humans are not damaging the environment, it's all natural.

Nicotine is not addictive.

[wiggs]

22. knrnt.

[4_TN_TITANS]

24. An almost incomprehensable castastrophe...

Think of all the animals and indigeonus people who would lose their lives due other people's horrible stewardships.

[Uncle Joe]

45. And it won't stop with them, every human and animal on the planet

is at risk, the consequences of losing the Amazon is catastrophic for everyone.

[RestoreGore]

25. Cattle Ranching Is Killing The Amazon

Or I should say, GREED is. But, I guess since the world can't give up their steaks and Big Macs this will continue.

http://www.mongabay.com/brazil.html

A Closer Look at Brazilian Deforestation

Today deforestation in the Amazon is the result of several activities, the foremost of which include:

Clearing for cattle pasture

Colonization and subsequent subsistence agriculture

Infrastructure improvements

Commercial agriculture

Logging

[amandabeech]

56. Ranching is being forced out of savannah areas by

soybean and sugar farming.

Biodiesel and ethanol, anyone?

[AnExtremist]

26. Sad isn't it? How many people will only take notice now that it's pretty much going to die?

How many years have we had to defend the amazon? Makes you wonder just how much more we'll have to wait before people turn up the heat on stopping bush killing our constitution.

[Fox Mulder]

27. Oh my gods...

it's worse than I thought.

Is there anything we can do to save it? Anything?

[Dems Will Win]

28. Yes I told you - Crutzen's GLOBAL THERMOSTAT

Chill out! The link is in the OP.

[KittyWampus]

32. thanks for the info, I will read it later. about global thermostat. sounds like a good conversation

starter at parties :)

what i mean is, good info to share around.

[donkeyotay]

30. Crutzen's plan in already Plan B,at best

As he said, it would be better to stop global warming in the first place. Furthermore, the sulfur is short-lived in the atmosphere while the carbon dioxide is long-lived. He points to the volcanic eruption that temporarily cooled earth a few years back. Didn't that also increase the levels of UV? (He's the scientist. He did work on this, so surely he would know, wouldn't he?) Anyway, if we have to resort to these types of schemes, there will most likely be unintended consequences. It would be so much better if we could respect the planet that sustains us all in the first place. Yes, I know, that horse has left the building already. Thanks, I think. K&R.

[Dems Will Win]

33. Yes the balance of nature has already left the building

That is exactly why Crutzen's Global Thermostat is needed. But it must be in conjunction with 90% reduction of Carbon by 2050!

[conspirator]

34. Stop the greedy "Free trade" and economy growth and things may go back

to normal

[Disturbed]

41. Instead of bombs couldn't planes drop water?

Just wonderin'.

[Uncle Joe]

47. That's an interesting thought, but I'm thinking blimps will work better,

as they will not require all the burning of carbon to become airborne.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

42. Thinking of all the unique species that will be gone forever

I know it's an unpopular notion, but population reduction sooner or later will be required, as well as a reduction in each person's consumption of resources. Fortunately for me, I won't be around long enough to see where ignorance, stubbornness, and selfishness leads the human race.

[Lorien]

65. I'm doing my part

I've never had children and never will. I can't see any logic in bringing more into the world when they have absolutely no future. I expect that I'll be around to suffer our demise as a species, so I doubt that any child born today will ever see middle age.

[KillCapitalism]

43. Man, we have doomed ourselves and all other species on this planet!

This plus the extreme rains in Britain, extreme heat in Europe, and other similar things are ominous signs.

[Warren DeMontague]

46. Fire on the hemisphere below.

Sugar cane, and coffee cup, copper, steel and cattle.

Annotated History, The Forest For The Fire.. Where we propogate confusion. Freedom reigns supreme.

Fire on the Hemisphere, Below...

Listen to me. Listen to me. Listen to me.

Listen to me!

[halobeam]

49. This is the stuff that makes me regret having kids

not the freakin' politics (although I admit it's a bit dangerous now in this area).. but more the things that are already too late to do anything about. I woke up too late. How do I accept my massive failure? How will our kids ever forgive us? Maybe it's just unforgivable.

Wow.

[Uncle Joe]

48. Thanks for the thread Dems Will Win.

Kicked and recommended.

[Uncle Joe]

50. Kicked to make the pretty flames appear. n/t

[halobeam]

51. k & r

[ramapo]

52. That can't happen!

Don't you know? This is all alarmist nonsense. Don't listen to the scientists, ecologists, biologists. Man is in charge here and we're not going to let any stinkin' nature mother ruin our party. This is our planet. Not the animals' or trees'.

Besides drought is normal. We've had droughts here in New Jersey and we just use our sprinklers more. Then it rains a lot and we get floods.

And all that warming silliness? Thank goodness. We don't like the cold and anyway, we have air conditioning, thank goodness, especially today, it is so-o-o humid. Certainly not dry.

I'm goin' to watch some more TV now. Certainly nothin' on the TV about mega-fires and such. Just terrorists coming here because they're tired of over there. Oh yeah, and how about that Lindsay Lohan? She used to be so cute....

[DCKit]

73. Shrub would probably call them "Book-a-ninnies"

The science just ain't in yet, and by the time it is, Jeeeeesssus will already be here.

[Dems Will Win]

53. Here's this great site where you can invest in reforesting the Amazon!

http://www.amazonreforest.com/

[Dems Will Win]

55. More info

Amazon reforestation begins (28 September 2006)

The rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is decreasing and, in some areas, ranchers are even being forced to replant areas cleared for farming.



Brazil's rainforest is getting greater protection

According to conservation organisation WWF, the rate at which the rainforests are being destroyed is slowing though, it claims, this is largely due to economic factors rather than environmental concerns about the loss of biodiversity of the vast carbon sink that makes up the Amazon Basin.

A dip in the global market for soy, the foundation of Brazilian agriculture, is a major factor says the pressure group.

Nevertheless, the slowing of the forest clearance is to be welcomed.

"The decline is encouraging, but we are not out of the woods yet," said WWF-Brazil's CEO, Denise Hamú.

"More concerted action is required to integrate the government's environmental and development policies in order to really crack down on illegal activities that are having an adverse effect on the forest. Encouraging policies that foster a sustainable forestry-based regional economy should be pursued."

WWF believes that, carried out in the right way, sustainable forestry activities can generate income while ensuring a plentiful supply of timber in the long term, and helping to conserve existing wildlife and plant species.

In some areas, the trend has even been reversed with government enforcing laws which require landowners to keep at least 80% of their land forested.

Previous laws had set this figure at 50% and, in the Acre region at least, government is forcing those who do not meet these targets to plant native sapling such as mahogany grown in state nurseries.

Meanwhile, the Amazon Regional Protected Areas (ARPA) initiative, administered by an alliance of NGOs, development banks and the Brazilian Government, has secured some 20 million hectares of forest land which will now be protected.

"Through ARPA we are creating parks and reserves in areas that risk being rapidly deforested," explained Cláudio Maretti, head of WWF-Brazil's protected areas programme, which supports the ARPA initiative.

"We are not only ensuring biodiversity conservation in perpetuity in these areas, but we are also bringing order to the land tenure chaos that leads to uncontrolled deforestation."

"Improved land tenure in the agricultural sector has been a key element in the reduction of deforestation rates. The setting aside of indigenous reserves and protected areas under ARPA are two fundamental tools enabling the government to assert its ownership over public lands in the Brazilian Amazon against land grabbers and speculators."

http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=12061&channel=0

[Lorien]

64. Scary deforestation map on that site

shows the "emerald necklace" of the world's rain forests (which supplies our oxygen and regulates the world's weather patterns) disappearing within 40-50 years. Total collapse of the rest of the world's environments can't be far behind.

[lovuian]

54. Water Woes

http://youtube.com/watch?v=3TcDor0rk98
people are driving cars over the amazon

We are destroying Earth and ourselves

[Blue_Tires]

59. k+r

[ott]

61. Hope that cheap beef is worth it. -eom-

[Emillereid]

63. James Lovelock predicted this in his book "The Revenge of Gaia" --

he talks about the Amazon drying out and burning. He also said the same sort of thing will happen to the great Siberian forests.

[theHandpuppet]

66. It's all the gays fault!!

If we'd just do something about those gays, God wouldn't have to put the other billions through plague, pestilence and drought.

:sarcasm:

Seriously, we're fucked. Can't say as a species we're not deserving of some serious blowback.

[JacquesMolay]

67. I'm with you there ...

.. the gays ate all the trees in The Rain Forests. That's a well-known fact.

[GETPLANING]

68. The Sahara Desert was once rainforest

The Egyptian records and archaeological evidence points to anciant Egypt recieving regular rain.

[hogwyld]

72. * will save us all!!!!!

He's just going to order the nuking of all the brown people messing with "our" earth. If not, mother nature will take care of us humans till there is a balance. say about a billion max?

[DCKit]

74. Not if it's a Halliburton, no-bid Contract

We've still got a trillion or two left to spend.

Then again, I'm sure it's all a terrorist plot to discredit the administration and threaten the 'mercan peoples.

[GliderGuider]

75. The story is a year old. Here's what's happening this summer.

Will Amazon drought worsen in 2007?

In the Southern Amazon, a region that has suffered the brunt of deforestation due to clearing for cattle pasture and agriculture, April or May mark the beginning of the dry season. Rains usually return in September or October, though in recent years, dry seasons have been prolonged, with increasingly severe impacts on the forest ecosystem. In 2005 and 2006 the Amazon experienced the worst droughts on record as thousands of square kilometers of land burned for months on end, releasing more than 100 million metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere. As rivers dried up, remote communities were isolated while commerce slowed to a standstill.

2007 is shaping up to be a similar year with meteorologists forecasting conditions akin to those seen in 2005: warming in the tropical North Atlantic (the same conditions that influence hurricane formation in the Caribbean and East Coast of the United States). Another year of drought is of great concern to researchers studying the Amazon ecosystem. Field studies by the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Research Center suggest that Amazon forest ecosystems may not withstand more than two consecutive years of drought without starting to break down.

(snip)

Simulations by scientists from Woods Hole and other institutions suggest that 40 percent of the Amazon could be lost by 2050. Climate change, which may increase temperatures in the basin by as much as five degrees Celsius (eight degrees F), could exacerbate the loss.

"The threat of a “permanent El Niño” is therefore to be taken very seriously," said Dr. Philip M. Fearnside of the National Institute for Research in the Amazon (INPA) in an interview with mongabay.com last year. "Again, it depends on how seriously society takes the problem to be. If fossil-fuel combustion and deforestation are reduced to reflect the importance of the problem, then the worst could be avoided. If this does not happen, the danger of a “runaway greenhouse” escaping from human control becomes much greater. Disintegration of the Amazon forest, with release of the carbon stocks in the biomass and soil, would be a significant factor in pushing us into a runaway greenhouse."

So we are now in the third year of the drought. Wave bye-bye to the nice rain forest...

Paul Chefurka

[B Calm]

76. It's been a dry summer here in Indiana...

[TheBaldyMan]

77. Does anybody know what part of the El Nino/La Nina cycle it is right now?

I'm just asking because a two year drought might be a effect of this. There might be a knock on effect on the Amazonian climate.

[L. Coyote]

78. Crap in a tin-toil hat, despair spreader. The title is truly ignorant of reality.

This is like saying the rains on Mars are getting worse.

[BrainGlutton]

79. As one prominent auto-industry CEO put it, "How much clean air do we actually NEED?"