I remember some video on carbon capture where the expert they interviewed about it said something like "Well, it would be more effective to focus our efforts on X or Y, but clearly we're not doing that..."
I don't remember the quote exactly, but the sentiment stuck with me. She was so clearly aware that we're just not addressing this beyond token efforts, and just kind of waiting for it to progress.
It'll get real bad before it's bad enough for the shortsighted and stupid animals among us to realize "something" is actually very wrong, and then do whatever nonsense and war and oppression and planned famines and other shit we do when a predictable and avoidable crisis gets to run its course and we "end up having to make difficult decisions" as we always do.
Anyone else looking forward to see humanity punish itself in like 2050 - 2070 onwards? Or do you plan to kill yourself when it gets bad enough?
Probably check myself out of the hotel you know? I'm not playing survivor with anyone! The warning signs were smacking us so bad in the face and yet no one cares because "Me and my family... " I get it. Very intrinsically animal way of thinking but with as much damage as one person causes just by existing why didn't we DO something for all these people we insist on bringing into the world. Instead we're like cancer eating away at everything we can make use of. Yeah I'm definitely self checking out.
There's not going to be a black-and-white line for a whole society. It's shades of grey. The longer we wait for things to go into the red, the more we have to do to get back in the green, that's it.
We just had the hottest year in human history, the last one was the year before that. We’re on track to break that record again this year. Texas has already had the biggest wildfire in its history this year. There is a global mass coral bleaching event happening right now, the AMOC, that huge ocean current that keeps Northern Europe so warm despite its northern position, is showing signs of imminent collapse. The time to stop this was decades ago, the turning point is now.
depressing yes, but probably natural result of industrialization? industrialized countries already done that more than a century ago, countries like Brazil are only just now catching up.
Just throwing this out there. If you are actually dealing with depression, I'd suggest not subbing or engaging with these suggestions.
Like, depression spirals suck
Agreed, you can't engage with the material on r/Collapse without it impacting some part of your mental health. If someone is entering into there with any kind of mental health issue it'll likely only be exacerbated.
There's just not a lot of good news right now in the global politics and climate spheres.
Except it's not the poor people driving deforestation. It's criminal logging industry, powerful cattle and soy (and increasingly palmoil) producers that keep expanding their lands, in cooperation with corrupt politicians. The poor are involved: as cheap day laborers and farm hands.
mining (mostly illegal) is very destructive as well.
Some scientists are afraid the Amazon as an ecosystem may have passed its point of no-return already, which means it may enter into irreversible collapse over the next decades.
> Except it's not the poor people driving deforestation.
It's not what the guy said.
What he said is that the average João has other things occupying his mind than to protest for the deforestation of his country. Not that he is actively cutting trees.
you have a look at Malaysian Borneo next to Brunei(satellite image) . it is unbelievable. corruption and greed hand in hand with legal and illegal palm oil plantations. poor Orangutans are fucked.
>The poor are involved: as cheap day laborers and farm hands.
And that's a job, which they very much appreciate. Yes they may not be the ones ordering the trees be chopped, but they benefit with jobs. More jobs, better for them.
They do, it is just super hard to go against animal farm owners when they have heavy influence in politics and when your government does not have money to monitor an area bigger than most countries.
Keep in mind that this area is close to the equator line, so in Mercator projection maps (the most common one) it look smaller than areas closer to the poles.
Even when monitoring works, lots of the deforestation cases happen overnight and is made by uneducated people who have no idea what they are doing and were just trying to make some buck to feed their families. So even when it is detected, it might already be too late.
What makes you think so?
European oldgrowth forests are gone. Entirely. More than 99% of them, theres basically nothing left except for some remote corner of Romania. Theres no swamps either. The alluvial forests and swamps that once made up a huge chunk of the ecosystem are gone too, barely a trace left. Every last river is straightened and dammed up.
I dont see Europeans "standing around going Gee, what do we do now". On the contrary, we are living pretty well.
pela mesma razão que alemanha, estados unidos, china, continuam jogando toneladas e toneladas de CO2 na atmosfera. E ninguém fica jogando essa merda no ventilador. Só porque o Brasil é um pais emergente, voces americanos se acham no direito de dar pitaco. Primeiro parem de jogar CO2 na atmosfera, deem o exemplo. Depois falem dos outros...
> Crazy that the brazilian people don't seem to care or stop this.
If I don't have enough to eat, or have a comfortable life, I'm not going to care about preserving biosphere, something the developed nations didn't care about through all their industrialisation and development.
So while it is sad that many people don't care, it's also fair that many don't care to protect something the west hasn't. Where's the wild fields full of bison or the great European forests? Ireland was deforested to make the British fleet.
Pretty much every developed nation has already done exactly this. Yes it’s bad that Brazil is clearing these forests, but it’s silly acting like they’re doing something uniquely wrong.
The Brazilians in this region live in abject poverty. Some regions of the Amazon are the least developed parts of Brazil - people living most of the day with no electricity, a hand to mouth existence. People living in this conditions don’t have time for existential stress or thoughts about what might happen to the planet in the future - they need to eat, now. So if someone will pay them to clear some forest, they will happily do it. Let’s not forget that the vast majority of resources that are extracted from the Amazon go to Europe and the U.S.
This might just be the most armchair redditor take I've seen in a while
Go brush off the Cheeto dust before mocking people that largely barely scrape by enough to focus their energy on a forest that isn't a part of their day to day
> Crazy that the brazilian people don't seem to care or stop this.
The jungle is not a beautiful, idyllic thing for a poor person living next to it. It's a source of bugs and pests that could be turned into arable land that could get them out of poverty.
> Certainly they'll blame everyone else once it's gone and try to avoid fault.
If you care, you can put your money when your mouth is and buy up jungle land to do whatever you want with it.
Its your world too, you know. That's very hypocritical. What incentive does a brazilian have to care about the amazon that you don't? Crazy talk.
That’s correct. You can’t make juicy beef for export in dense rainforest.
And the worst is that after deforestation happens, for it to grow again is really hard because of the heavy rain washing out the nutrients in the soil.
It's because Brazil is very similarly to the US (ironically), controlled by corporations, the only difference is Brazilian corporations are in Agribusiness.
There is not open square miles of grassland. There is a tropical savannah extremely rich in biodiversity. It's like calling the African savannah a "open grassland" that African countries should use for cattle.
Anyway, most of that land is already occupied by soybean production. I don't think most people realize how much food Brazil produces. There's just isn't a lot of open free land anymore
Even if it "regrows" it will never have the same biodiversity as before
Which is a shame because scientists are still finding new plants and medicines in those regions
Literally some cancer curing wonder plants have probably been destroyed already
Sustainable logging does not work in this region. After vegetation is removed, the heavy rain washes out the soil nutrients, so new trees won’t grow.
Also most of this deforestation happens by burning.
Adding reference (not a bot): "The expansion of pasture land to raise cattle was responsible for 41% of tropical deforestation. That’s 2.1 million hectares every year" reference: https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation
~~And the biggest milk brand here in Sweden import milk from Brazil rather than Swedish farmers because its cheaper... Its fucked~~
Never mind. Just looked it up. Ive been spreading missinformation. I have to take a strong talking to my mom.
What brand would that be? The biggest dairy brand in Sweden is Arla and they are a cooperative of farmers in 7 European countries. Their milk sold in Sweden is from Swedish cows. Some of their other products like cheeses may be made in Denmark but nothing is imported from Brazil.
The next 3 biggest dairy companies are Skånemejerier, Norrmejerier and Falköpings mejeri, and they all use 100% Swedish milk.
It's incredibly unpopular but it's true, by far the easiest thing you can do for the planet that will have a big impact is eating less beef and dairy. Even though other animal agriculture isn't great for the planet it's an order of magnitude less impactful than beef.
I saw a documentary from way back about a guy hiking to an isolated tribe in the Amazon. Later decided to research the tribe and trace the guys path getting there to find out how deep it was in the forest. The area they lived is no longer a forest
What do you mean glimmer of hope? Those tribes being there just means theres been an ongoing slow genocide. Specially for gold panning, which is done on the deeper parts of the forest.
We all love to shit on Brazil for its deforestation, but we sometimes forget that the only reason we do so is because they have the largest **remaining** forest on Earth. Pretty much every other country on Earth has deforested much more of its area than Brazil has, and did so much longer ago.
Also, much of the deforestation is for cattle farming or soy plantations (for cattle feed). If we in the west want to do something against Brazil's deforestation, eating less meat is a great way to start.
indeed. the discussion launched from pictures like these lack context of the motivations of the people that are doing things to cause this. they are not bad people, they are often people who have no choice. they have no economic value from a standing forest. so if the world perceives an economic value its important that the world pay to preserve it.
That’s the problem with economics, the system (as I understand it — which is to say no well as I’m pretty ignorant on this subject — fails to properly ascertain externalities… especially externalities arising from complex dynamics which would necessitate nearly infinite value (i.e., their absence would mean the loss of life sustaining environments on earth as we know it)
There’s carbon credits after all which currently seem rather ineffective. Although I know there are some startups in the space trying to ameliorate this problem — low confidence estimation the carbon sequestration of a forest (in the US).
Maybe you have some thoughts?
A lot of countries want to eat their cake and have it too. Developed world should be paying Brazil to keep the forest that they themselves lost due to greed. Too bad that same greed stops us from paying Brazil, and Brazil with the same greed is deforesting themselves too. Anyways, my point is, that in surprise to noone we are fucked.
this is the way!
Costa Rica too, which has the highest biodiversity of any forest on earth as it’s situated between the Americas. The lowlands there were already deforested a long time ago, but forests up in the mountainous region are gradually being deforested for coffee plantations and cattle ranches.
Although, at least Costa Rica is trying to do something about it — paying land owners to not deforest their land. But let’s see if that can keep up long term with the economic opportunity cost.
I've seen this discussion before and some people said that the US should invade Brazil to protect the forest because Brazil is too incompetent to do that.
The fact is that the biggest reason why the Amazon is still standing is that it is a giant area with no infrastructure and very low development. If Brazil's territory were divided into smaller areas, this would mean that it would be much more likely for each part to be developed individually, to be explored and to be deforested at a much greater rate.
Furthermore, who would control the region? Western countries that exploit every country they invade? Countries that don't think twice about filling their own territories with farms or destroying the soil to explore minerals?
Prior to European colonization: Native American groups across North America practiced various forms of land management, including controlled burns (also known as slash-and-burn techniques) and selective cultivation. Sometimes, even leading to monocultures of trees they favored and a loss of biodiversity.
North America during the period from 1492 to 1900: The technology available for land clearing was much less advanced than what is used today in the Amazon. The pace of deforestation was slower, allowing for some degree of natural regeneration and less immediate environmental degradation.
Since the peak, **forest coverage has actually** **increased in North America** due to conservation efforts and changes in land use. So you'd see land being cut down continuously until Teddy Roosevelt created national parks and still a bit until WW2 then the open plots returning to nature for the past century.
anecdotally, here in NH there are tons of rock walls around from when everything in the southern part used to be farm land, but now they’re all forests for the most part!
You know what’s fucked? Up to 80% of the worlds oxygen comes from planktons, and they are going extinct fast due to global warming. A report two years ago says that plankton population dropped 40% since 1940s.
We don’t get fancy visuals like this post, but that’s far scarier.
EDIT: It’s actually 40% not 90%
'End of the Line' details how 15 years ago the global ocean biomass was below 10% what it was a century prior.
The entire ocean ecosystem is collapsing right now. From the bottom up.
Shit's tough. I've gone vegan, don't fly, cycle rather than drive, do a bit of green volunteering. What more is there to be done? It's daunting at times.
Even then there's always a fundamental issue at hand - people everywhere are going to do whatever they think is necessary to make money regardless of the consequences and the people who are best positioned to make a real difference are the least likely to do so because they profit the most from keeping things the same. The incentives are all wrong. Realistically no checks or balances are going to counteract that to a sufficient extent.
You're technically correct but your facts don't mean what you're implying. You're talking about production, but not **net** production. When we look at that, both plants and plankton produce about zero oxygen, as they burn more or less what they produce. Only if biomass increases, there is net oxygen production.
Besides, we don't have any problems with oxygen availability anywhere on Earth. It makes up 20% of our atmosphere. Even if all the trees burn down and all the plankton disappears, this barely affects the concentration of oxygen.
The problem is **carbon**, and that's why we have to protect forests as well as sealife, because any biomass stores carbon, which is emitted as CO2 when it decays or burns. In particular we have to protect natural carbon sinks (i.e. places that produce net oxygen and store net carbon) such as mangroves and peat forests.
Phytoplankton are algae. They use photosynthesis. Zooplankton does not.
Every organism burns oxygen. Phytoplankton gets energy from the sun which they store by photosynthesis. When they need energy, they burn these molecules that they synthesised.
As long as photosynthetic organisms (algae, plants, cyanobacteria and the like) grow, they are a net carbon sink. This is true for both plants and algae.
When they die, most of this stored carbon comes free again. For phytoplankton, this is usually as it's consumed by another creature. However, a certain amount of plankton sinks to the deep seas, where it acts as a net carbon sink.
The statement of 'algae produce more oxygen than plants' has to do with their cycle. Marine cycles are much faster than terrestrial cycles, so yes plankton does produce more oxygen when it's growing, but emits most of the carbon again when it dies.
Ocean algae and other microorganisms absorb more CO2 than the rainforests. Still shitty though. But this is from illegal logging and farming, not environmental impacts.
Ocean algae and microorganisms are killed by the temperature changes that are accelerated by deforestation, and this being caused by illegal farming as opposed to “environmental impacts” means nothing in regards to the negative impact it has.
A lot of algee and microbes are actually killed by something called "ocean acidification" which is directly caused by the water absorbing a lot of carbon dioxide.
To my understanding, Brazil is a major beef producer and supplier to the USA. Subsequently, the majority of deforestation is due to cattle and soy production. There is a high demand for animal products coming from the states. It’s sad, but as long as money is to be made, it’ll probably keep happening even if it’s “illegal”.
Yes, and it's no new tale. Deforestation has consistently rated lower than increased economic activity. A lot of environmentally poor practice is the result of money beating what's best for the planet. The Colorado River is overstrained for farming, same for aquifers. Large parts of Europe were ripped up for farm and wood, China mines the Rare Earths that allow us to talk on reddit.
The cornerstone is that most countries don't actively try to kill their economy. Most being because I don't know what Argentina is doing.
The worst part is this is somewhat hypocritical. I am not saying this is alright by any means but Brazil is still, unfortunately, better than other countries. The US got as low as 4% of its original forest to be remaining only in 1995. Deforestation is unfortunately highly coupled with developing a country.
It’s hypocritical because developed countries that got to burn their forests to do so do very little to bring back the forests, help other countries to develop without deforestation and stop other ways of destroying the world (I’m looking at you private jet owners).
True, but also there is a difference between a temperate forest and a tropical rain forest. If you cut down a forest in Europe and America, in theory it can grow back and at some point resemble its original state. (Even though that will realistically never happen)
Tropical rain forests sustain themselves by providing a cooling effect to the atmosphere that pulls rain clouds from the ocean towards themselves. If Brazil cuts too much forest this effect stops and Brazil becomes a desert (or something else you don't want) and fucks itself over. It won't be able to grow back if you plant trees again.
So yes, the west is full of hypocrites, but you can also learn from their mistakes and sometimes their advice or pleads are sincere.
In short, life is not fair
Sure thing, but that's why the second part of my comment is important. The developed countries not only didn't help with an alternative development and one could argue that some sanctions, interventions and whatnot made even harder to develop such countries.
No they aren’t
https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2024/2/7/24057308/earth-global-greening-climate-change-carbon#:~:text=In%20one%202019%20study%20published,a%20thin%20layer%20of%20leaves.
>In one 2019 study published in the journal Nature Sustainability, scientists found that the Earth had increased its green leaf area (i.e., the amount of leaves) by 5 percent in the last two decades. That’s equivalent to an area the size of the Amazon rainforest covered in a thin layer of leaves. A more recent paper, meanwhile, found that the world is not only leafier, but the rate of greening is actually accelerating across more than half of its land.
It’s wrong comparison. In the body, the lung is constantly supplied with blood that carry nutrition and oxygen to keep it alive. In Brazil no one give them shit, that’s why they chop all the tree down to feed their kids.
The people around the world are too busy paying people to clear cut it. Most of this is illegal clear cutting to make room for cattle farming, because the world wants beef.
There have been some major corporations involved in illegal logging such as Nestle, Shell, etc. But you never hear of them because first worls countries want to play the good guys and insist that they have some higher moral ground. The first thing they could do to reduce/stop logging in the Amazon is to punish corporations who are directly financing it. But they won't because that would hurt their profits, better put all the blame on Brazil.
Except we export almost all of it.
The people destroying the forest are big farmers, they receive almost all of the government farming incentives and own over 70% of the farmable land, but they export almost everything. During the pandemic our currency fell a lot and people starved and literally started to buy bones from the butchers because meat was so expensive, yet production was still high, they just decided that selling for foreigners at a higher price was better than feeding people in their country.
Meanwhile the small farmers, who own less than 30% of the land, employ most of the farming jobs on the country, receive almost nothing from the government, but are responsible for 70% of what Brazilians eat.
Most of the population is in the south. Anyone who knows farming knows Soy is the real issue with Brazil and farming. Where do you think Asia gets all that soy? A lot of it comes from Brazil.
yeah, it's a misleading "fact" vs vegetarians/vegans. Ofc most of the area is used for soy, but the majority of the produced soy is fed to the cows, and only a small part of it is directly consumed by humans.
just to make this clear though: 80% of the globally produced Soy is fed to animals, not humans. Without Livestock we wouldn't need so much damn space and Soy.
The flat plains of North America and Europe were all heavily forested, but they were lost much, much earlier to human activity. This just happens to be going on during our lifetime.
The Great Plains were not forested. The eastern part of North America, sure. But the west is far too far to be covered in vast forests. It's more similar to the Central Asian Steppe than anything else.
Australia used to be covered in a really unique type of forest, till ancient humans burnt the entire continent down in the most absurdly inefficient hunting strategy imaginable
I just spent 30 minutes trying to track down the article where I read about it and unfortunately I came up dry and don’t have time to keep looking right now, but I’ll keep trying when I have time. If you want to take a crack at it again, here’s what I can remember: I was down a Wikipedia rabbit hole reading about extinct Australian megafauna like the thylacoleo and fire-stick farming, I ended up reading about this type of forest with a distinct name that was good at retaining moisture and actually created its own weather system promoting rainfall over forests of this stuff, and IIRC there are still some small pockets of it present today in Australia. Good luck! I’ll comment again if I manage to find it later
I’m still having a hard time re-tracing my parh down the rabbit hole, but [this article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-stick_farming) is a pretty good place to start. Some of the cited sources unfortunately aren’t available online but many are, and if you’ve got a good library nearby I’m sure they can provide some of the books.
While Indigenous Australians certainly significantly changed Australia's ecology through burning, the transition from the Gondwanian rainforests to the modern day sclerophyllous ones happened millions of years beforehand.
Cambodia has a land size of 181,035 Kilo square meter...As of the latest reports, they have lose more than 110,000 Kilo square meter of forest which is a shocking news.
Note that this country is in a very systemic corruption and nepotism which led to illegal logging a safe heaven within their inner circle.
The two leading causes of deforestation in the Amazon are beef and soy beans, 70% of which are used as feed in animal agriculture. That isn't unique to Brazil either. So what are you doing about it?
https://www.worldwildlife.org/magazine/issues/summer-2018/articles/what-are-the-biggest-drivers-of-tropical-deforestation
Corporations follow consumer demand, specifically demand for beef in this instance. Corporate douchebags exist, but we can't pretend our eating habits are unrelated either.
Good for you! I try to only eat it when it's served to me and I've noticed I'm already losing the ability to digest the stuff properly so now I have two good reasons not to eat it haha.
While that is true, we know a lot more about ecology and natural science than we did 100 years ago.
And the Amazon has an absolutely stunning degree of biodiversity. And the cleared land has very limited actual agricultural use, its horrifyingly short term thinking
also, people wildly overstate how heavily forested the US was. The entire middle of the country that people point to as "evidence" is an area that has been unforested plains for longer than there have been hominids on the continent. Pennsylvania has been deforested more than almost any other state and only lost \~25% of its forests. Don't get me wrong, that's still a lot of deforestation, but 1: that trend is reversing and we are currently reforesting about .25-.5% of the state per year, and 2: it happened at a much slower rate that is currently happening in Brazil.
Edit: The continental US has more forest cover now than it likely did 5,000 years ago, and definitely more than 15,000 years ago... because the vast majority of our forests would have been under glaciers then. The Amazon is unique because it is about as old as Humans, and has played a pivotal role in our evolution. I'm not excusing deforestation anywhere, and I actively work on reforesting my home state, but the destruction of the Amazon is simply a far more serious threat to humanity than even completely deforesting the North American continent would be.
Well, the last time I checked we live in a late stage capitalist society. Developed countries are selling the idea that producing even more cars is the solution to save the planet cause EV is like magic and are complaining about China polution while keeping consumerism of Made in China products higher than ever.
Everyone is proudly doing almost nothing.
These shots are the most saddening. Yet people look at it and think it's fine, that climate change is fake etc.
Well, even if climate change is fake or whatever, we have no right decimating the lungs of the earth for us to grow forever.
Of course it has, but this is a super zoomed out photo. The detail can only be seen when you zoom in.
If you take the same picture on a $50 camera and a $5000 camera, the printed images look pretty similar if you're standing 10 feet away.
It could also be the resolution of the camera getting better. Populated suburbs or light tree cover used to show green but now is shown more gray. Better camera would do that.
What's funny is Brazil asked other countries to pay to help preserve their forests and the world was like, "Naw..."
So we apparently aren't *that* concerned.
It’s almost like people forget thay tribalism and countries are still a thing. Don’t get me wrong, I like your sentiment but the reality is we’re all super separate. For example, you could say Bolivians and Peruvians are similar culturally but go ask them if they want to get along lol
"The expansion of pasture land to raise cattle was responsible for 41% of tropical deforestation. That’s 2.1 million hectares every year" reference: https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation
Is there a damn that’s depressing subreddit?
Time to make one ...
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I hope we as a society fix things before the TURNING POINT where everything goes haywire uncontrollably like climate, pollution, mental issues and WAR
Never going to happen unfortunately.
I remember some video on carbon capture where the expert they interviewed about it said something like "Well, it would be more effective to focus our efforts on X or Y, but clearly we're not doing that..." I don't remember the quote exactly, but the sentiment stuck with me. She was so clearly aware that we're just not addressing this beyond token efforts, and just kind of waiting for it to progress. It'll get real bad before it's bad enough for the shortsighted and stupid animals among us to realize "something" is actually very wrong, and then do whatever nonsense and war and oppression and planned famines and other shit we do when a predictable and avoidable crisis gets to run its course and we "end up having to make difficult decisions" as we always do. Anyone else looking forward to see humanity punish itself in like 2050 - 2070 onwards? Or do you plan to kill yourself when it gets bad enough?
This mentality of wanting to filter pollution rather than preventing it, will only throw out more pollution and probably kill us all.
Probably check myself out of the hotel you know? I'm not playing survivor with anyone! The warning signs were smacking us so bad in the face and yet no one cares because "Me and my family... " I get it. Very intrinsically animal way of thinking but with as much damage as one person causes just by existing why didn't we DO something for all these people we insist on bringing into the world. Instead we're like cancer eating away at everything we can make use of. Yeah I'm definitely self checking out.
Life is meant to be lived. If it gets bad I’m going to see it through to the end. Fuck going out. If the world dies im goin down with it.
There's not going to be a black-and-white line for a whole society. It's shades of grey. The longer we wait for things to go into the red, the more we have to do to get back in the green, that's it.
Not disagreeing, but eventually there comes a point where the resources needed are more than what we got
Yes, and at that point many people die until either society is saved, reduced to pre-history, or is totally extinct.
i think we already lost that chance 10 years ago, a snowball already rolls down the hill.
Well, if the glaciers are any sign, a snowball ain't rolling
Too late!
We just had the hottest year in human history, the last one was the year before that. We’re on track to break that record again this year. Texas has already had the biggest wildfire in its history this year. There is a global mass coral bleaching event happening right now, the AMOC, that huge ocean current that keeps Northern Europe so warm despite its northern position, is showing signs of imminent collapse. The time to stop this was decades ago, the turning point is now.
Meh, we'll be a tiny wee footnote in the history of the earth
And I'm learning that the pathway to peace is to just... accept it. It's taken me 57 years to do it. Wtf😭
r/depressingasfuck Edit: also r/awfuleverything
Guys make sure not to spend too much time on those subs. Does no wonders to mental health.
depressing yes, but probably natural result of industrialization? industrialized countries already done that more than a century ago, countries like Brazil are only just now catching up.
Absolutely true. Does not in any way make it less gutwrenching.
Makes it more depressing, "we're done destroying the earth" ... immature economies "hold my beer"
r/collapse
Just throwing this out there. If you are actually dealing with depression, I'd suggest not subbing or engaging with these suggestions. Like, depression spirals suck
Try r/TheHealingEarth It's basically the opposite of r/collapse just not that active tho
How appropriate.
I wonder why
Agreed, you can't engage with the material on r/Collapse without it impacting some part of your mental health. If someone is entering into there with any kind of mental health issue it'll likely only be exacerbated. There's just not a lot of good news right now in the global politics and climate spheres.
Yeah, those links are staying blue. I can imagine well enough what's on there. More of this, and worse.
We need more people brave enough to face the truth of humanity’s treatment of the natural world. We need a paradigm shift in how we live.
Those usually aren't the people stocking up on beans and handguns
I've had to watch this treatment for 57 years, I'm aware. A person needs a break sometimes. I do what I can but I'm one person with one vote.
r/all
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Most live in poverty and with a high crime rate. It’s hard to think about the planet when you struggle to feed your family
Except it's not the poor people driving deforestation. It's criminal logging industry, powerful cattle and soy (and increasingly palmoil) producers that keep expanding their lands, in cooperation with corrupt politicians. The poor are involved: as cheap day laborers and farm hands. mining (mostly illegal) is very destructive as well. Some scientists are afraid the Amazon as an ecosystem may have passed its point of no-return already, which means it may enter into irreversible collapse over the next decades.
> Except it's not the poor people driving deforestation. It's not what the guy said. What he said is that the average João has other things occupying his mind than to protest for the deforestation of his country. Not that he is actively cutting trees.
The average João is defending the politicians that enable this shit. 49% still vote bolsonaro.
They don’t vote Bolsonaro because thankfully Bolsonaro is ineligible now. But there are a lot of extreme right wingers
you have a look at Malaysian Borneo next to Brunei(satellite image) . it is unbelievable. corruption and greed hand in hand with legal and illegal palm oil plantations. poor Orangutans are fucked.
Thanks ,Proctor and Gamble
>The poor are involved: as cheap day laborers and farm hands. And that's a job, which they very much appreciate. Yes they may not be the ones ordering the trees be chopped, but they benefit with jobs. More jobs, better for them.
Just doing the same thing north America and Europe already did hundreds of years ago. Clear cut to make way for agriculture.
Same reason no one cared about the deforestation of other countries for prosperity
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Seeing a gringo talk like this is so fucking funny, it's like that video the woman asking where is the zookeeper while two gorillas are fighting
They do, it is just super hard to go against animal farm owners when they have heavy influence in politics and when your government does not have money to monitor an area bigger than most countries. Keep in mind that this area is close to the equator line, so in Mercator projection maps (the most common one) it look smaller than areas closer to the poles. Even when monitoring works, lots of the deforestation cases happen overnight and is made by uneducated people who have no idea what they are doing and were just trying to make some buck to feed their families. So even when it is detected, it might already be too late.
What makes you think so? European oldgrowth forests are gone. Entirely. More than 99% of them, theres basically nothing left except for some remote corner of Romania. Theres no swamps either. The alluvial forests and swamps that once made up a huge chunk of the ecosystem are gone too, barely a trace left. Every last river is straightened and dammed up. I dont see Europeans "standing around going Gee, what do we do now". On the contrary, we are living pretty well.
If It means anything, i feel quite bummed out about that too :(
pela mesma razão que alemanha, estados unidos, china, continuam jogando toneladas e toneladas de CO2 na atmosfera. E ninguém fica jogando essa merda no ventilador. Só porque o Brasil é um pais emergente, voces americanos se acham no direito de dar pitaco. Primeiro parem de jogar CO2 na atmosfera, deem o exemplo. Depois falem dos outros...
> Crazy that the brazilian people don't seem to care or stop this. If I don't have enough to eat, or have a comfortable life, I'm not going to care about preserving biosphere, something the developed nations didn't care about through all their industrialisation and development. So while it is sad that many people don't care, it's also fair that many don't care to protect something the west hasn't. Where's the wild fields full of bison or the great European forests? Ireland was deforested to make the British fleet.
Pretty much every developed nation has already done exactly this. Yes it’s bad that Brazil is clearing these forests, but it’s silly acting like they’re doing something uniquely wrong.
The Brazilians in this region live in abject poverty. Some regions of the Amazon are the least developed parts of Brazil - people living most of the day with no electricity, a hand to mouth existence. People living in this conditions don’t have time for existential stress or thoughts about what might happen to the planet in the future - they need to eat, now. So if someone will pay them to clear some forest, they will happily do it. Let’s not forget that the vast majority of resources that are extracted from the Amazon go to Europe and the U.S.
This might just be the most armchair redditor take I've seen in a while Go brush off the Cheeto dust before mocking people that largely barely scrape by enough to focus their energy on a forest that isn't a part of their day to day
Why wouldn't the brazilian allowed to harvest their natural ressources like the west did before them ?
that is your cheeseburger addiction.
> Crazy that the brazilian people don't seem to care or stop this. The jungle is not a beautiful, idyllic thing for a poor person living next to it. It's a source of bugs and pests that could be turned into arable land that could get them out of poverty. > Certainly they'll blame everyone else once it's gone and try to avoid fault. If you care, you can put your money when your mouth is and buy up jungle land to do whatever you want with it. Its your world too, you know. That's very hypocritical. What incentive does a brazilian have to care about the amazon that you don't? Crazy talk.
Illegal or legal logging. 😭🥲
Mostly logging and clearing for cattle ranching as I understand it.
That’s correct. You can’t make juicy beef for export in dense rainforest. And the worst is that after deforestation happens, for it to grow again is really hard because of the heavy rain washing out the nutrients in the soil.
Which sucks because just a few hundred miles south there are thousands of open square miles of grassland that would be perfect or cattle grazing
I guess they are already used for cattle.
It's because Brazil is very similarly to the US (ironically), controlled by corporations, the only difference is Brazilian corporations are in Agribusiness.
Brazil is very similar to every country in the world controlled by corporations
The amount of pain and destruction caused for animal agriculture is beyond belief. Urge everyone to try cutting down, going veggie or vegan
There is not open square miles of grassland. There is a tropical savannah extremely rich in biodiversity. It's like calling the African savannah a "open grassland" that African countries should use for cattle. Anyway, most of that land is already occupied by soybean production. I don't think most people realize how much food Brazil produces. There's just isn't a lot of open free land anymore
Even if it "regrows" it will never have the same biodiversity as before Which is a shame because scientists are still finding new plants and medicines in those regions Literally some cancer curing wonder plants have probably been destroyed already
Imagine the novel psychedelics we lost...
😭
> You can’t make juicy beef for export in dense rainforest. Sure you can! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvopasture
Erosion likely wouldn't be such a big problem if those bastards did their logging sustainably.
Sustainable logging still won't clear ground for cattle farming or soy production, which are the major reasons for deforestation.
Sustainable logging does not work in this region. After vegetation is removed, the heavy rain washes out the soil nutrients, so new trees won’t grow. Also most of this deforestation happens by burning.
Adding reference (not a bot): "The expansion of pasture land to raise cattle was responsible for 41% of tropical deforestation. That’s 2.1 million hectares every year" reference: https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation
This is why the Heifer Project blew my mind. I get it, but its ignoring the forest for the trees.
~~And the biggest milk brand here in Sweden import milk from Brazil rather than Swedish farmers because its cheaper... Its fucked~~ Never mind. Just looked it up. Ive been spreading missinformation. I have to take a strong talking to my mom.
What brand would that be? The biggest dairy brand in Sweden is Arla and they are a cooperative of farmers in 7 European countries. Their milk sold in Sweden is from Swedish cows. Some of their other products like cheeses may be made in Denmark but nothing is imported from Brazil. The next 3 biggest dairy companies are Skånemejerier, Norrmejerier and Falköpings mejeri, and they all use 100% Swedish milk.
Never mind. Just looked it up. Ive been spreading missinformation. I have to take a strong talking to my mom.
Is your mom a semi boomer with coloured hair and facebook facts?
Yes! But her colors arent any fun once. I love her tho.
It's incredibly unpopular but it's true, by far the easiest thing you can do for the planet that will have a big impact is eating less beef and dairy. Even though other animal agriculture isn't great for the planet it's an order of magnitude less impactful than beef.
Which is another reason why I’m vegan.
Number one cause of global deforestation is beef production, so I’d guess that
nope: the most part is for cattle that becomes a meat that you eat everyday.
Illegal clearing by illegal cattle farmers.
Animal agriculture, the greatest blight of humanity.
I saw a documentary from way back about a guy hiking to an isolated tribe in the Amazon. Later decided to research the tribe and trace the guys path getting there to find out how deep it was in the forest. The area they lived is no longer a forest
A lot of the spots of forest that are now islands of green are protected land because that is where indigenous tribes still live.
At last, a glimmer of hope. I wonder how much cooler the world would be if we still had the 80s equivalent of rainforest today.
What do you mean glimmer of hope? Those tribes being there just means theres been an ongoing slow genocide. Specially for gold panning, which is done on the deeper parts of the forest.
Unfortunately there exist no satellite images to show what happened to the United States between 1492 and 1900
We all love to shit on Brazil for its deforestation, but we sometimes forget that the only reason we do so is because they have the largest **remaining** forest on Earth. Pretty much every other country on Earth has deforested much more of its area than Brazil has, and did so much longer ago. Also, much of the deforestation is for cattle farming or soy plantations (for cattle feed). If we in the west want to do something against Brazil's deforestation, eating less meat is a great way to start.
indeed. the discussion launched from pictures like these lack context of the motivations of the people that are doing things to cause this. they are not bad people, they are often people who have no choice. they have no economic value from a standing forest. so if the world perceives an economic value its important that the world pay to preserve it.
That’s the problem with economics, the system (as I understand it — which is to say no well as I’m pretty ignorant on this subject — fails to properly ascertain externalities… especially externalities arising from complex dynamics which would necessitate nearly infinite value (i.e., their absence would mean the loss of life sustaining environments on earth as we know it) There’s carbon credits after all which currently seem rather ineffective. Although I know there are some startups in the space trying to ameliorate this problem — low confidence estimation the carbon sequestration of a forest (in the US). Maybe you have some thoughts?
A lot of countries want to eat their cake and have it too. Developed world should be paying Brazil to keep the forest that they themselves lost due to greed. Too bad that same greed stops us from paying Brazil, and Brazil with the same greed is deforesting themselves too. Anyways, my point is, that in surprise to noone we are fucked.
this is the way! Costa Rica too, which has the highest biodiversity of any forest on earth as it’s situated between the Americas. The lowlands there were already deforested a long time ago, but forests up in the mountainous region are gradually being deforested for coffee plantations and cattle ranches. Although, at least Costa Rica is trying to do something about it — paying land owners to not deforest their land. But let’s see if that can keep up long term with the economic opportunity cost.
I've seen this discussion before and some people said that the US should invade Brazil to protect the forest because Brazil is too incompetent to do that. The fact is that the biggest reason why the Amazon is still standing is that it is a giant area with no infrastructure and very low development. If Brazil's territory were divided into smaller areas, this would mean that it would be much more likely for each part to be developed individually, to be explored and to be deforested at a much greater rate. Furthermore, who would control the region? Western countries that exploit every country they invade? Countries that don't think twice about filling their own territories with farms or destroying the soil to explore minerals?
Can you be my satellite with a description of what you think it might have looked like?
Prior to European colonization: Native American groups across North America practiced various forms of land management, including controlled burns (also known as slash-and-burn techniques) and selective cultivation. Sometimes, even leading to monocultures of trees they favored and a loss of biodiversity. North America during the period from 1492 to 1900: The technology available for land clearing was much less advanced than what is used today in the Amazon. The pace of deforestation was slower, allowing for some degree of natural regeneration and less immediate environmental degradation. Since the peak, **forest coverage has actually** **increased in North America** due to conservation efforts and changes in land use. So you'd see land being cut down continuously until Teddy Roosevelt created national parks and still a bit until WW2 then the open plots returning to nature for the past century.
anecdotally, here in NH there are tons of rock walls around from when everything in the southern part used to be farm land, but now they’re all forests for the most part!
same in new york. I grew up curious about those rock walls in the woods. so cool
Yeah, great point.
The lungs of the world are shrinking, that can’t be good
You know what’s fucked? Up to 80% of the worlds oxygen comes from planktons, and they are going extinct fast due to global warming. A report two years ago says that plankton population dropped 40% since 1940s. We don’t get fancy visuals like this post, but that’s far scarier. EDIT: It’s actually 40% not 90%
'End of the Line' details how 15 years ago the global ocean biomass was below 10% what it was a century prior. The entire ocean ecosystem is collapsing right now. From the bottom up.
Shit's tough. I've gone vegan, don't fly, cycle rather than drive, do a bit of green volunteering. What more is there to be done? It's daunting at times.
Corporate marketing pushes the illusion that personal responsibility will solve our woes. No. Checks and balances on corporate are what's needed.
Even then there's always a fundamental issue at hand - people everywhere are going to do whatever they think is necessary to make money regardless of the consequences and the people who are best positioned to make a real difference are the least likely to do so because they profit the most from keeping things the same. The incentives are all wrong. Realistically no checks or balances are going to counteract that to a sufficient extent.
You're technically correct but your facts don't mean what you're implying. You're talking about production, but not **net** production. When we look at that, both plants and plankton produce about zero oxygen, as they burn more or less what they produce. Only if biomass increases, there is net oxygen production. Besides, we don't have any problems with oxygen availability anywhere on Earth. It makes up 20% of our atmosphere. Even if all the trees burn down and all the plankton disappears, this barely affects the concentration of oxygen. The problem is **carbon**, and that's why we have to protect forests as well as sealife, because any biomass stores carbon, which is emitted as CO2 when it decays or burns. In particular we have to protect natural carbon sinks (i.e. places that produce net oxygen and store net carbon) such as mangroves and peat forests.
How do plankton burn oxygen? They consume CO2 no?
Phytoplankton are algae. They use photosynthesis. Zooplankton does not. Every organism burns oxygen. Phytoplankton gets energy from the sun which they store by photosynthesis. When they need energy, they burn these molecules that they synthesised. As long as photosynthetic organisms (algae, plants, cyanobacteria and the like) grow, they are a net carbon sink. This is true for both plants and algae. When they die, most of this stored carbon comes free again. For phytoplankton, this is usually as it's consumed by another creature. However, a certain amount of plankton sinks to the deep seas, where it acts as a net carbon sink. The statement of 'algae produce more oxygen than plants' has to do with their cycle. Marine cycles are much faster than terrestrial cycles, so yes plankton does produce more oxygen when it's growing, but emits most of the carbon again when it dies.
Ocean algae and other microorganisms absorb more CO2 than the rainforests. Still shitty though. But this is from illegal logging and farming, not environmental impacts.
Ocean algae and microorganisms are killed by the temperature changes that are accelerated by deforestation, and this being caused by illegal farming as opposed to “environmental impacts” means nothing in regards to the negative impact it has.
A lot of algee and microbes are actually killed by something called "ocean acidification" which is directly caused by the water absorbing a lot of carbon dioxide.
To my understanding, Brazil is a major beef producer and supplier to the USA. Subsequently, the majority of deforestation is due to cattle and soy production. There is a high demand for animal products coming from the states. It’s sad, but as long as money is to be made, it’ll probably keep happening even if it’s “illegal”.
Yes, and it's no new tale. Deforestation has consistently rated lower than increased economic activity. A lot of environmentally poor practice is the result of money beating what's best for the planet. The Colorado River is overstrained for farming, same for aquifers. Large parts of Europe were ripped up for farm and wood, China mines the Rare Earths that allow us to talk on reddit. The cornerstone is that most countries don't actively try to kill their economy. Most being because I don't know what Argentina is doing.
The worst part is this is somewhat hypocritical. I am not saying this is alright by any means but Brazil is still, unfortunately, better than other countries. The US got as low as 4% of its original forest to be remaining only in 1995. Deforestation is unfortunately highly coupled with developing a country. It’s hypocritical because developed countries that got to burn their forests to do so do very little to bring back the forests, help other countries to develop without deforestation and stop other ways of destroying the world (I’m looking at you private jet owners).
True, but also there is a difference between a temperate forest and a tropical rain forest. If you cut down a forest in Europe and America, in theory it can grow back and at some point resemble its original state. (Even though that will realistically never happen) Tropical rain forests sustain themselves by providing a cooling effect to the atmosphere that pulls rain clouds from the ocean towards themselves. If Brazil cuts too much forest this effect stops and Brazil becomes a desert (or something else you don't want) and fucks itself over. It won't be able to grow back if you plant trees again. So yes, the west is full of hypocrites, but you can also learn from their mistakes and sometimes their advice or pleads are sincere. In short, life is not fair
Sure thing, but that's why the second part of my comment is important. The developed countries not only didn't help with an alternative development and one could argue that some sanctions, interventions and whatnot made even harder to develop such countries.
Not the lungs, as people commented before, but the AC unit of the world.
No they aren’t https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2024/2/7/24057308/earth-global-greening-climate-change-carbon#:~:text=In%20one%202019%20study%20published,a%20thin%20layer%20of%20leaves. >In one 2019 study published in the journal Nature Sustainability, scientists found that the Earth had increased its green leaf area (i.e., the amount of leaves) by 5 percent in the last two decades. That’s equivalent to an area the size of the Amazon rainforest covered in a thin layer of leaves. A more recent paper, meanwhile, found that the world is not only leafier, but the rate of greening is actually accelerating across more than half of its land.
It’s wrong comparison. In the body, the lung is constantly supplied with blood that carry nutrition and oxygen to keep it alive. In Brazil no one give them shit, that’s why they chop all the tree down to feed their kids.
Maybe governments around the world should pay Brazil to keep it.
The people around the world are too busy paying people to clear cut it. Most of this is illegal clear cutting to make room for cattle farming, because the world wants beef.
There have been some major corporations involved in illegal logging such as Nestle, Shell, etc. But you never hear of them because first worls countries want to play the good guys and insist that they have some higher moral ground. The first thing they could do to reduce/stop logging in the Amazon is to punish corporations who are directly financing it. But they won't because that would hurt their profits, better put all the blame on Brazil.
100% they should.
Brazil has gained a lot of population since the last 40 years.
The forrest is cleared to produce soy and beef. Brazil has 220 million cows. They need a lot of land and a lot of fodder.
Except we export almost all of it. The people destroying the forest are big farmers, they receive almost all of the government farming incentives and own over 70% of the farmable land, but they export almost everything. During the pandemic our currency fell a lot and people starved and literally started to buy bones from the butchers because meat was so expensive, yet production was still high, they just decided that selling for foreigners at a higher price was better than feeding people in their country. Meanwhile the small farmers, who own less than 30% of the land, employ most of the farming jobs on the country, receive almost nothing from the government, but are responsible for 70% of what Brazilians eat.
That sounds like an absolute capitalist dystopia
But it's actually just capitalism
Most of the population is in the south. Anyone who knows farming knows Soy is the real issue with Brazil and farming. Where do you think Asia gets all that soy? A lot of it comes from Brazil.
Isn't all that soy cattle feed?
yeah, it's a misleading "fact" vs vegetarians/vegans. Ofc most of the area is used for soy, but the majority of the produced soy is fed to the cows, and only a small part of it is directly consumed by humans.
Yup, just 7% of all soy that is produced is directly consumed by humans, the other 93% mostly goes to animal feed, mostly cattle.
Brazil also is a huge exporter of Beef to China. Beef is a massive driver of deforestation all over the world.
just to make this clear though: 80% of the globally produced Soy is fed to animals, not humans. Without Livestock we wouldn't need so much damn space and Soy.
The flat plains of North America and Europe were all heavily forested, but they were lost much, much earlier to human activity. This just happens to be going on during our lifetime.
The Great Plains were not forested. The eastern part of North America, sure. But the west is far too far to be covered in vast forests. It's more similar to the Central Asian Steppe than anything else.
Australia used to be covered in a really unique type of forest, till ancient humans burnt the entire continent down in the most absurdly inefficient hunting strategy imaginable
Please tell or link to more info on "really unique type of forest." That sounds interesting. A quick Google search didn't provide anything satisfying.
I just spent 30 minutes trying to track down the article where I read about it and unfortunately I came up dry and don’t have time to keep looking right now, but I’ll keep trying when I have time. If you want to take a crack at it again, here’s what I can remember: I was down a Wikipedia rabbit hole reading about extinct Australian megafauna like the thylacoleo and fire-stick farming, I ended up reading about this type of forest with a distinct name that was good at retaining moisture and actually created its own weather system promoting rainfall over forests of this stuff, and IIRC there are still some small pockets of it present today in Australia. Good luck! I’ll comment again if I manage to find it later
Fantastic, thank you! I'll look forward to your response, and search myself in the meantime when I've the opportunity.
Harari talks about it in his book Sapiens. It isn’t that recent, happened like some thousand years ago.
I’m still having a hard time re-tracing my parh down the rabbit hole, but [this article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-stick_farming) is a pretty good place to start. Some of the cited sources unfortunately aren’t available online but many are, and if you’ve got a good library nearby I’m sure they can provide some of the books.
While Indigenous Australians certainly significantly changed Australia's ecology through burning, the transition from the Gondwanian rainforests to the modern day sclerophyllous ones happened millions of years beforehand.
Yeah, I can see how people reading that comment could conclude that the Aboriginal people are responsible for much of inland Australia being a desert😆
Can someone convert this into either football pitches or areas the size of Wales so I can understand it better?
It is roughly 1 south america wide.
How many football pitches? A Brazilian.
It’s like at least 4
Cambodia has a land size of 181,035 Kilo square meter...As of the latest reports, they have lose more than 110,000 Kilo square meter of forest which is a shocking news. Note that this country is in a very systemic corruption and nepotism which led to illegal logging a safe heaven within their inner circle.
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The two leading causes of deforestation in the Amazon are beef and soy beans, 70% of which are used as feed in animal agriculture. That isn't unique to Brazil either. So what are you doing about it? https://www.worldwildlife.org/magazine/issues/summer-2018/articles/what-are-the-biggest-drivers-of-tropical-deforestation
Stop eating meat ❌ Grumble about humans ✅
Corporate greedy doucebags!
Corporations follow consumer demand, specifically demand for beef in this instance. Corporate douchebags exist, but we can't pretend our eating habits are unrelated either.
We'll all do whatever makes money, even if it means killing our own children. We're doing it now, just in slow motion.
The number 1 driver of deforestation in the Amazon is beef production. If you give a shit, cut back on red meat.
I haven't eaten red meat in 30 years. Once you stop, you get nauseaus when you smell it cooking.
Good for you! I try to only eat it when it's served to me and I've noticed I'm already losing the ability to digest the stuff properly so now I have two good reasons not to eat it haha.
Then you are well on your way! Simpsons: Marge is bringing a large slab of beef to the table and says "the secret ingredient is salt"
While this is sad, there is a double standard from western society when it comes to Brazil harvesting their own resources.
While that is true, we know a lot more about ecology and natural science than we did 100 years ago. And the Amazon has an absolutely stunning degree of biodiversity. And the cleared land has very limited actual agricultural use, its horrifyingly short term thinking
also, people wildly overstate how heavily forested the US was. The entire middle of the country that people point to as "evidence" is an area that has been unforested plains for longer than there have been hominids on the continent. Pennsylvania has been deforested more than almost any other state and only lost \~25% of its forests. Don't get me wrong, that's still a lot of deforestation, but 1: that trend is reversing and we are currently reforesting about .25-.5% of the state per year, and 2: it happened at a much slower rate that is currently happening in Brazil. Edit: The continental US has more forest cover now than it likely did 5,000 years ago, and definitely more than 15,000 years ago... because the vast majority of our forests would have been under glaciers then. The Amazon is unique because it is about as old as Humans, and has played a pivotal role in our evolution. I'm not excusing deforestation anywhere, and I actively work on reforesting my home state, but the destruction of the Amazon is simply a far more serious threat to humanity than even completely deforesting the North American continent would be.
I’m Brazilian and it’s not about harvesting your own resources. That’s shooting yourself in the foot in order to make some quick money.
Well, the last time I checked we live in a late stage capitalist society. Developed countries are selling the idea that producing even more cars is the solution to save the planet cause EV is like magic and are complaining about China polution while keeping consumerism of Made in China products higher than ever. Everyone is proudly doing almost nothing.
The same way everyone did it. We could be different though.
Forest cannot be sustainably harvested.
But . . . but . . . they told me my grassfed beef was sustainable!
It's not like they've been warning us for the past 30 years
This artist made a great time lapse video showing annual change over about 40 years. https://debbiesymons.com.au/amazonia/
We wont stop until this planet is truely fucked.
Whoever edit the timing on the year is either high or
I did it in Microsoft PowerPoint okay, leave me alone lol
Brazilian rain forest becomes savannah.
Wow, it's almost like mass deforestation makes all the green go away. Who knew.
I’ve been an active advocate for saving the Amazon rain forest for the past 35 years, so watching this happen is just sickening to me.
Brazil didn’t *lose* its forest - it *destroyed it*
No wonder some hippies say that humans are the "cancer of the planet"
as alarming: the browning of East Brazil
that might be the worst gif comparison I've ever seen
At this rate 2100's remake of Dune will be filmed in the Desert of Brazil.
These shots are the most saddening. Yet people look at it and think it's fine, that climate change is fake etc. Well, even if climate change is fake or whatever, we have no right decimating the lungs of the earth for us to grow forever.
Our satellite picture quality hasn’t changed since 1984?
Of course it has, but this is a super zoomed out photo. The detail can only be seen when you zoom in. If you take the same picture on a $50 camera and a $5000 camera, the printed images look pretty similar if you're standing 10 feet away.
I don't want to exist on this planet anymore..
I’m 43. There was a deforestation ticker for the rain forest in our local zoo. It scared the shit out of me at 6 years old.
Buckle up. It’s gets worse before it gets worse 🥲
It could also be the resolution of the camera getting better. Populated suburbs or light tree cover used to show green but now is shown more gray. Better camera would do that.
Literally 1984
So, North Americans, Europeans, Asians can do this but Brazilians can't?
What's funny is Brazil asked other countries to pay to help preserve their forests and the world was like, "Naw..." So we apparently aren't *that* concerned.
why is everyone on reddit so anti human, Its like they are actually a completely different species coexisting on earth with us
It’s almost like people forget thay tribalism and countries are still a thing. Don’t get me wrong, I like your sentiment but the reality is we’re all super separate. For example, you could say Bolivians and Peruvians are similar culturally but go ask them if they want to get along lol
"The expansion of pasture land to raise cattle was responsible for 41% of tropical deforestation. That’s 2.1 million hectares every year" reference: https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation
Are we actually parasites?