Topic: Deforestation

[libby]

On another thread, Duke and I talked about which was worse, deforestation or strip-mining (including mountaintop removal). Thinking mostly of the loss of beauty, I said I thought the latter was worse.

But then I picked up a copy of National Geographic's Special Edition about our changing climate. I haven't read it all...the pictures alone are quite sobering....


Deforestation

Rampant logging, along with slash-and-burn agriculture, has leveled stretches of Burma's lush, carbon-capturing forests--home to threatened species like orangutans and pygmy elephants. Intensive logging on the island has cleared thousands of acres for commercial palm oil and pulpwood plantations while feeding a lucrative export trade in timber.

Deforestation accounts for about 20 percent of all human-caused CO2 emissions.
- National Geographic, Special Edition, on newstands until June 22, 2008.



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[Duke Jupiter]

On another thread, Duke and I talked about which was worse, deforestation or strip-mining (including mountaintop removal). Thinking mostly of the loss of beauty, I said I thought the latter was worse.

But then I picked up a copy of National Geographic's Special Edition about our changing climate. I haven't read it all...the pictures alone are quite sobering....


Deforestation

Rampant logging, along with slash-and-burn agriculture, has leveled stretches of Burma's lush, carbon-capturing forests--home to threatened species like orangutans and pygmy elephants. Intensive logging on the island has cleared thousands of acres for commercial palm oil and pulpwood plantations while feeding a lucrative export trade in timber.

Deforestation accounts for about 20 percent of all human-caused CO2 emissions.
- National Geographic, Special Edition, on newstands until June 22, 2008.

Libby,

We are rapidly removing the Earth's lungs.

Best regards,
Duke (needs to plant some trees) Jupiter

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[libby]

Well said and a little scary, Duke.

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[Right Conspiracy]

Earth first, we can log the other planets later!  To be put to its best use a tree has to be cut down and turn into something.

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[moondance27]

Earth first, we can log the other planets later!  To be put to its best use a tree has to be cut down and turn into something.

Shows just how ignorant you truly are....slash and burn means....cut tress and burning them to clear the land to graze cattle.  This is happening in the amazon at a tremendous pace, most of our oxygen is produced in the amazon.  Deforest the amazon and this planet suffers from a lack of Ozygen.

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[Duke Jupiter]

Earth first, we can log the other planets later!  To be put to its best use a tree has to be cut down and turn into something.

Shows just how ignorant you truly are....slash and burn means....cut tress and burning them to clear the land to graze cattle.  This is happening in the amazon at a tremendous pace, most of our oxygen is produced in the amazon.  Deforest the amazon and this planet suffers from a lack of Ozygen.

He's not ignorant, just diminished capacity.

Best regards,
Duke (life is good) Jupiter

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[moondance27]

Earth first, we can log the other planets later!  To be put to its best use a tree has to be cut down and turn into something.

Shows just how ignorant you truly are....slash and burn means....cut tress and burning them to clear the land to graze cattle.  This is happening in the amazon at a tremendous pace, most of our oxygen is produced in the amazon.  Deforest the amazon and this planet suffers from a lack of Ozygen.

He's not ignorant, just diminished capacity.

Best regards,
Duke (life is good) Jupiter

 

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[TheVinylVillager]

Earth first, we can log the other planets later!  To be put to its best use a tree has to be cut down and turn into something.

how typical. I guess you never learned in science that trees and other plant life are necessary for the air we breathe.
Of course, maybe a new coffee table is more important than air to someone such as yourself.

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[Tony Light]

Last time I looked, "Ozygen" was bad for you.

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[Tony Light]

By the way. About 20% of earth's oxygen is produced by the Amazon rainforest.

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[moondance27]

By the way. About 20% of earth's oxygen is produced by the Amazon rainforest.

Tropical rainforests produce 40% of Earth's oxygen. The Amazon Rainforest has been described as the "Lungs of our Planet" because it continuously recycles carbon dioxide into oxygen.

Rainforests once covered 15% of the earth's land surface; now they cover a mere 6% and experts estimate that the last remaining rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years. In 1950, about 15 percent of the Earth's land surface was covered by rainforest. Today, more than half has already gone up in smoke. In fewer than fifty years, more than half of the world's tropical rainforests have fallen victim to fire and the chain saw, and the rate of destruction is still accelerating. Unbelievably, more than 200,000 acres of rainforest are burned every day. That is more than 150 acres lost every minute of every day, and 78 million acres lost every year! More than 20 percent of the Amazon rainforest is already gone, and much more is severely threatened as the destruction continues. It is estimated that the Amazon alone is vanishing at a rate of 20,000 square miles a year. Yet, the destruction of the ocean’s plankton far surpasses the decimation of the rain forests in its effect on our oxygen supply.

OOPS....Algae production is on the decline due to the warming of the oceans

What scientists have determined is that there has been a significant decline in plankton growth that has had a direct effect on the world's carbon cycle, Normally, the ocean plants take up about half of all the carbon dioxide in the world's environment because these plants use the carbon, along with sunlight, to grow. As they grow, they release oxygen into the atmosphere in a process known as photosynthesis. The primary production of plankton in the North Pacific has already decreased by more than 9 percent during the past 20 years, and by nearly 7 percent in the North Atlantic

http://curingoxygen.com/oxygen_problem.htm

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[libby]

Worst possible scenarios...more from National Geographic:

It's human nature to assume--sometimes contrary to evidence--things will carry on as we've always known them. Even scientists can succumb to this tendency as they try to make climate predictions for the future, says Harvard's Steven Wofsy. "People in the climate-modeling world often tend to think linearly," Wofsy says. For instance, if a given amount of carbon in the atmosphere has created one degree Fahrenheit of warming, it might seem reasonable to expect the same amount added again would spur another degree of warming.

Unfortunately, the world doesn't appear to work that way. "When change occurs," says Wofsy, "it often occurs not linearly, but catastrophically."

Climate science has several nightmare scenarios--including ice sheet collapse and major ocean current disruption--all grouped under a common term: positive feedbacks.

One of the gravest possible scenarios is the thawing of huge quantities of organic material locked in frozen soil beneath Arctic landscapes like one in northern Canada. A cycle of thawing and freezing is normal at the surface, creating distinctive Arctic polygon patterns. But when the northern warming passes a certain threshold, scientists fear large amounts of buried organic material will decompose, releasing primarily methane, a greenhouse gas significantly more efficient at trapping heat than CO2. Earth's atmospheric greenhouse warming would greatly intensify. Humanity's direct carbon contribution through burning of fossil fuels would have been small--but just enough to tip the balance tward runaway climate change. Some scientists suspect that such a scenario unfolded at the end of the Permian period 250 million years ago, leading to the extinction of 95 percent of Earth's species.
"The positive feedbacks are the scariest thing in my view," says NOAA climate scientist Peter Tans. "It means climate change is feeding on itself. At some point, there would be little we could do to stop it."

National Geographic Special Edition, on newstands until June 22, 2008.

I really, really hope they're wrong. libby

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[Tony Light]

By the way. About 20% of earth's oxygen is produced by the Amazon rainforest.

Tropical rainforests produce 40% of Earth's oxygen. The Amazon Rainforest has been described as the "Lungs of our Planet" because it continuously recycles carbon dioxide into oxygen.

Rainforests once covered 15% of the earth's land surface; now they cover a mere 6% and experts estimate that the last remaining rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years. In 1950, about 15 percent of the Earth's land surface was covered by rainforest. Today, more than half has already gone up in smoke. In fewer than fifty years, more than half of the world's tropical rainforests have fallen victim to fire and the chain saw, and the rate of destruction is still accelerating. Unbelievably, more than 200,000 acres of rainforest are burned every day. That is more than 150 acres lost every minute of every day, and 78 million acres lost every year! More than 20 percent of the Amazon rainforest is already gone, and much more is severely threatened as the destruction continues. It is estimated that the Amazon alone is vanishing at a rate of 20,000 square miles a year. Yet, the destruction of the ocean’s plankton far surpasses the decimation of the rain forests in its effect on our oxygen supply.

OOPS....Algae production is on the decline due to the warming of the oceans

What scientists have determined is that there has been a significant decline in plankton growth that has had a direct effect on the world's carbon cycle, Normally, the ocean plants take up about half of all the carbon dioxide in the world's environment because these plants use the carbon, along with sunlight, to grow. As they grow, they release oxygen into the atmosphere in a process known as photosynthesis. The primary production of plankton in the North Pacific has already decreased by more than 9 percent during the past 20 years, and by nearly 7 percent in the North Atlantic

http://curingoxygen.com/oxygen_problem.htm

Moon you first said MOST ot the oxygen produced was from the Amazon. Wrong. As I said 20% of earth's oxygen is produced by the Amazon rainforest.

Linkback: http://4seasonschat.com/index.php/topic,11257.msg125992.html#msg125992

[moondance27]

By the way. About 20% of earth's oxygen is produced by the Amazon rainforest.

Tropical rainforests produce 40% of Earth's oxygen. The Amazon Rainforest has been described as the "Lungs of our Planet" because it continuously recycles carbon dioxide into oxygen.

Rainforests once covered 15% of the earth's land surface; now they cover a mere 6% and experts estimate that the last remaining rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years. In 1950, about 15 percent of the Earth's land surface was covered by rainforest. Today, more than half has already gone up in smoke. In fewer than fifty years, more than half of the world's tropical rainforests have fallen victim to fire and the chain saw, and the rate of destruction is still accelerating. Unbelievably, more than 200,000 acres of rainforest are burned every day. That is more than 150 acres lost every minute of every day, and 78 million acres lost every year! More than 20 percent of the Amazon rainforest is already gone, and much more is severely threatened as the destruction continues. It is estimated that the Amazon alone is vanishing at a rate of 20,000 square miles a year. Yet, the destruction of the ocean’s plankton far surpasses the decimation of the rain forests in its effect on our oxygen supply.

OOPS....Algae production is on the decline due to the warming of the oceans

What scientists have determined is that there has been a significant decline in plankton growth that has had a direct effect on the world's carbon cycle, Normally, the ocean plants take up about half of all the carbon dioxide in the world's environment because these plants use the carbon, along with sunlight, to grow. As they grow, they release oxygen into the atmosphere in a process known as photosynthesis. The primary production of plankton in the North Pacific has already decreased by more than 9 percent during the past 20 years, and by nearly 7 percent in the North Atlantic

http://curingoxygen.com/oxygen_problem.htm

Moon you first said MOST ot the oxygen produced was from the Amazon. Wrong. As I said 20% of earth's oxygen is produced by the Amazon rainforest.

The largest pocket of concentration comes from there...algae and plankton are spread thorughout, other rainforests are smaller in concentration.

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[Duke Jupiter]

By the way. About 20% of earth's oxygen is produced by the Amazon rainforest.

A significant amount indeed.



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