Everyone TROPICANA

Everyone COPACABANA

/ her name was Lola, she was a showgirl

I thought we got rid of those things already

nekom: I thought we got rid of those things already

Nope, not yet. We still have some to go before we reach Peak Ethanol

It's been alarming since the 80s, I don't think that word means what you think it means.

geekchic: Everyone TROPICANA

Fun and sunshine, there's enough for everyone!

So are the world's ice-caps, but nobody seems to give a shiat about that fact either.

/fark it - I'll be dead when your grandchildren are treading water

Ever been in a tropical rainforest? I have. Slimy, smelly, buggy places. Good riddance.

More junk science from the lentil jockey luddites. What will they think of next?

Club Babalu!

her name was Lola, she was a showgirl

with yellow flowers in her hair and a dress cut down to there

is everyone TROPICANA similar to wang chungning?

I've been panicking about the rainforest since i was a kid. It has yet to do any good. I'm thinking i should try something else.

Perhaps I'll be laughed at this, but the Climate Change is happening just now.

We're getting the coldest winter ever here in Sonora, it has never been as cold before in all our state's recorded weather history. It's ungodly, damn it. Not to mention the hurricans going more and stronger with each year.

And what about those millions dying of cold in China? Oh yeah, mixed that, with the economic problems the US is facing and the climate change, the world will be faced with a shiatstorm of war for food, water, and one of the biggest economic crisis ever, along with one of the largest migrations of people, and most probably they'll be moving to Canada, Europe, partly to the US, and a few first world nations I may have ommited (yes, I know Europe's a subcontinen).

The world's going to Hell, and we're fresh out of handbaskets.

/Thank you for all those with the "I'm sure somebody else will figure it out" mentality

My name is Chico i work a Disco.... i make a dollar a day.......

That's funny. Recently published peer-reviewed study from the University of Leeds contradicts that assertion (new window):

"No convincing evidence for decline in tropical forests"

Dr Grainger first examined data published every 10 years by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) since 1980. These cover all forest in the humid and dry tropics and appear to indicate decline. FAO's Global Forest Resources Assessment 2000, for example, showed that all tropical forest area fell from 1,926 million hectares to 1,799 million hectares between 1990 and 2000. Ten years earlier, however, FAO's previous report said that tropical forest area fell from 1,910 million ha to 1,756 million ha for the same 90 countries between 1980 and 1990.

"Owing to corrections to the earlier study, the 1990s trend was just like a 're-run' of that in the 1980s," said Dr Grainger. "The errors involved in making estimates for forest area could easily be of the same order as the forest area reported cleared in the previous 10 years. Even if you take enormous care, as FAO does, I argue that large errors are inevitable if you produce global estimates by aggregating national statistics from many countries. This has important implications for the many scientists who rely on FAO data."

Since errors in national statistics are higher for forests in the dry tropics than for forests in the humid tropics, in places near the Equator such as Amazonia, Borneo and the Congo Basin, he repeated the process just for tropical moist forest, with a different set of data, in the hope it would give a clearer picture. This time he found no evidence for decline since the early 1970s. Indeed, while his own estimate in 1983 of tropical moist forest area in 1980 was 1,081 million hectares, the latest satellite data led to an estimate of 1,181 million hectares for the same 63 countries in 2000.

He is cautious about the apparent slight rise. "We would expect to see some increase in estimates as we use more accurate satellite sensors. This is even apparent in FAO's data. It is sad that only in the last 10 years have we begun to make full use of the satellite technology at our disposal."

I came here for hot brazillian girl pics and was dissapointed.

Oldiron_79: I came here for hot brazillian girl pics and was dissapointed.

Can't have that here...

"So are the world's ice-caps, but nobody seems to give a shiat about that fact either.

/fark it - I'll be dead when your grandchildren are treading water"


You are missing the point, Baccc. That sort of thinking is dangerous.

As John Locke once said; "No man is an island unto himself, but if you lash a few of their bloated corpses together, they make a passable raft."

/With such pearls of wisdom from their dear old grandpop, my grandchildren shall weather global warming just fine, thank you very much.

You know... in all seriousness, I used to travel to the rain forests of south america when I was younger every summer. They were some of the most amazing and beautiful places on earth. The thought of not being able to take my children there when the time comes... really really upsets me. Get yourself educated, go see them, and try to save them. They are the most amazing part on this planet.

/Sad every time I see these articles.
//Some hot Brazilian women might improve my mood... anyone?

Hmmm, don't think we Americans should be telling those brown people what to do with their trees. It's racist to think that we know better than them.

The Rainforest Coast of British Columbia encompasses the largest remaining intact temperate rainforest in the world.

temperate, not tropical.

Jesu Christo, wombatsrus who is that?

/Would hit it like Mr. Magoo in an Israeli Bulldozer

Growing population is burning the Brazil rain forest at the rate of one acre every second. No reason to be concerned. There will always be more.

Rap has words?

KellyLockhart: Everyone COPACABANA

/ her name was Lola, she was a showgirl

thanks for ruining my day jerk. Need some mind bleach

Dying Rainforests == Tropanic == Troponin Panic == Cardiac event.

Are you telling me that I'm going to have a heart attack because some fraking rubber tree is dying alone and without any love?


/yes, I'm an ER nerd.

In a few decades we'll be putting our armies to use defending the last trees on the planet.

That'll be weird.

Mr. Xhin: As a loyal Republican, I am proud to let this planet be sacrificed so that Dick Cheney's rich friends can have hefty short-term profits.

The Rapture must be coming any day now, right? Or if not, isn't there another planet we can all move too once this one is used up in the next 100 years.

As a democrat, I am proud that a fuzzy animal is being saved at the expense of the economic development of third world countries. They're happier when they are poor, right?

/strawman?
//I guess so.

From Brazil to central Africa to once-lush islands in Asia's archipelagos, human encroachment is shrinking the world's rain forests.

Not quite human encroachment...more like, cow.

They're being cleared for grazing land. Care about the environment? Eat less beef. The facts are overwhelming on the subject if you put any effort into studying it. It is the reason I think Gore is so terribly fake - he buys carbon credits from himself, gets rich (and Nobel Prizes) off your fears, but still heats his pool for $500/month, and still eats beef. He doesn't care, he wants you to be afraid and paying him - no different than some eeeeevil republican that wants you to be afraid of terrorists, so they get you to do stupid things.

Mr. Xhin
Easier said than done when you're wondering where your next meal is coming from, mmm? We could always try exploiting them less.
Oh, I forgot. Feeling bad about the 3rd world is like soooooo last week.

Who really gives a damn? Not anyone in our woman-dominated society.

Most of the wood for our fancy furniture comes from South American forests.

Try telling your woman that, chump. See if it changes her status-driven "mind."

You live in stainless forts,
with glass walls around,
Fight against resources
with your head in the ground,

A nation's urgent greed
fulfils anothers greed
going down down down
down down down down

Do you see? Do you see?
Do you see the ruins
of a life gone by?
Built upon the burning towers
lighting the sky,
Imagine you're the prince of eagles
tears in your eyes,
Do you see there's not much time
before we go
down down...
down down down down

-- Nektar, Recycled, 1975

Here's a thought: the rainforest is made of TREES, people. Wherever them Brazillions stop using the land for agriculture (i.e. feeding them, you & me which is a Good Thing), the trees tend to grow back. Remarkably quickly.

Yes, I know that the mix of plants isn't necessarily quite as good as before as habitat for the rare flying frog-wombat. But for soaking up CO2 to save you Miami/Tuvalu folks, it'll do just fine.

/ Tasty, the flying frog-wombat. Tastes like scallops.

So tell me again why planting trees in the northern climes is bad for us?

Is it just because they're planted by Weyerhauser and not a passel of hippies from Greenpeace?

The sun rises. Temp. goes up. The sun sets. Temp goes down. I guess next thing you know glow warmers will want to destroy the sun. Radiation = Heat Heheheh

i thoought the sound of a chainsaw was the sound of a renewable resource being harvested.

TheGreyPiper: So tell me again why planting trees in the northern climes is bad for us?

Is it just because they're planted by Weyerhauser and not a passel of hippies from Greenpeace?

Yep, thats there problem. When you get right down to it they are Anti Capitolist. (Read some of there charters and mission statements/Green Peace ect.) It will turn your stomach.

TheGreyPiper: So tell me again why planting trees in the northern climes is bad for us?

Is it just because they're planted by Weyerhauser and not a passel of hippies from Greenpeace?

You mean the tree cover today in the US that exceeds the tree cover for hundreds if not thousands of years? That planting of trees?

Yeah, that don't count.

I like their units of measurement. I'd like to plant half a Mississippi of trees so that I can harvest 280 Empire State Buildings of lumber please.

Screw 'em. They do nothing but reduce food and increase unhealthiness in nearby cities. Clear cut the lot as soon as possible to make room for farms. And cottages.

reelpirate: When you get right down to it they are Anti Capitolist.



/sari...

increased surface albedo should stop global warming. Stupid rainforests keep soaking up the heat. Need to cut it down and bury the trees to sequester the carbon and reflect the heat. Best thing you can do to a tree is cut it down and turn it into furniture and houses and then replant.

phukitol:

Bzzzt. Wrong. Thanks for playing. Unless all the carbon credit people and IPCC is wrong, cutting down trees and replanting will sequester carbon for a very long time. It's why treehuggers and greenies will oppose fighting climate change just as greenpeace now does.

I don't understand. I've sighed and said "that's too bad" dozens of times and nothing's changed.

I know! We can build a giant orbital mirror to reflect the sun's rays!

judan: I don't understand. I've sighed and said "that's too bad" dozens of times and nothing's changed.

Sometimes a sigh isn't enough. I think this situation may require you to preface your statement with an "Aww schucks."
The situation may be that dire.

Wow. There's a whole lot of uninformed opinion in here. Lemme throw in my 2 cents.

tbeatty:
Bzzzt. Wrong. Thanks for playing. Unless all the carbon credit people and IPCC is wrong, cutting down trees and replanting will sequester carbon for a very long time. It's why treehuggers and greenies will oppose fighting climate change just as greenpeace now does.

To say that environmentalists oppose fighting climate change because they would oppose one ill-advised, extreme method of carbon sequestration is a bit silly.

Nobody is even suggesting the solution you present, for very good reasons. High school biology would have told you that a forest ecosystem consists of more than the trees. Disrupting a relatively healthy ecosystem to turn it into some sort of carbon-sequestering tree farm would have wider-reaching effects than you think. The most important is the problem of biodiversity loss and it's effects via diversity-stability relationships.

Another obvious reason is that it takes more than simply CO2 for plants to grow. If you continually remove the biomass of an ecosystem, you'll be taking out more than just the carbon. You can't do this for very long, especially in a rainforest, where the highly-leached, clay soils are notoriously poor.

A third reason is that it takes a very long time for these apex ecosystems to form in the first place. Replacement of these systems is on the order of greater than a century, depending on where you are.

As for doing this with already-disrupted ecosystems, it already what's being done, but not for specifically carbon sequestration purposes, but for maximizing revenue from timber yield.

/hope that helps

blighted: judan: I don't understand. I've sighed and said "that's too bad" dozens of times and nothing's changed.

Sometimes a sigh isn't enough. I think this situation may require you to preface your statement with an "Aww schucks."
The situation may be that dire.


This reflects the sense of frustration at the perception of powerlessness in dealing with these kinds of environmental issues.

All I can say is try to make informed, conscious decisions and to realize that people are working to make things better, even though it rarely makes the news. And of course, you could always get involved.

For example, one good thing that has been happening in recent years is the growing popularity of third-party certification schemes for forest products. The biggest one that comes to mind is the FSC. They've signed a few big deals with Home Depot, among others.