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Amazon

Discussion in 'TalkCeltic Pub' started by Callum McGregor, Jul 26, 2019.

Discuss Amazon in the TalkCeltic Pub area at TalkCeltic.net.

  1. Callum McGregor The Captain Gold Member

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    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/25/amazonian-rainforest-near-unrecoverable-tipping-point


    Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon has surged above three football fields a minute, according to the latest government data, pushing the world’s biggest rainforest closer to a tipping point beyond which it cannot recover.

    The sharp rise – following year-on-year increases in May and June – confirms fears that president Jair Bolsonaro has given a green light to illegal land invasion, logging and burning.

    Clearance so far in July has hit 1,345 sq km, a third higher than the previous monthly record under the current monitoring system by the Deter B satellite system, which started in 2015.


    With five days remaining, this is on course to be the first month for several years in which Brazil loses an area of forest bigger than Greater London.

    The steady erosion of tree cover weakens the role of the rainforest in stabilising the global climate. Scientists warn that the forest is in growing danger of degrading into a savannah, after which its capacity to absorb carbon will be severely diminished, with consequences for the rest of the planet.

    “It’s very important to keep repeating these concerns. There are a number of tipping points which are not far away,” said Philip Fearnside, a professor at Brazil’s National Institute of Amazonian Research. “We can’t see exactly where they are, but we know they are very close. It means we have to do things right away. Unfortunately that is not what is happening. There are people denying we even have a problem.”


    It may also complicate ratification of Brazil’s biggest ever trade deal with the European Union if EU legislators decide the South American nation is not keeping its side of the bargain, which includes a commitment to slow deforestation in line with the Paris climate agreement.

    The official numbers from the National Institute for Space Research are a growing embarrassment to Bolsonaro, who has tried to fob them off as lies and criticised the head of the institute. Earlier this week, the president insisted the numbers should be screened by the ministry of science and technology and shown to him before being made public so that he did not get “caught with his pants down”.

    This has raised fears that the data could be vetted in future rather than automatically updated online each day as is currently the case.


    In his first seven months in power, Bolsonaro, who was elected with strong support from agribusiness and mining interests, has moved rapidly to erode government agencies responsible for forest protection.

    He has weakened the environment agency and effectively put it under the supervision of the agricultural ministry, which is headed by the leader of the farming lobby. His foreign minister has dismissed climate science as part of a global Marxist plot. The president and other ministers have criticised the forest monitoring agency, Ibama, for imposing fines on illegal land grabbers and loggers. The government has also moved to weaken protections for nature reserves, indigenous territories and zones of sustainable production by forest peoples and invited businesspeople to register land counter-claims within those areas.

    This has emboldened those who want to invade the forest, clear it and claim it for commercial purposes, mostly in the speculative expectation it will rise in value, but also partly for cattle pastures, soya fields and mines.


    Earlier this month, it was reported that thousands of gold miners illegally invaded Yanomami indigenous territory near the border with Venezuela. Elsewhere, illegal loggers have mounted at least two attacks in response to Ibama enforcement operations, according to the Folha newspaper. On 4 July, they reportedly burned an Ibama truck in Espigão d’Oeste, Rondônia state and last week they were said to have burned bridges in Placas, Pará state.

    Rather than defend his officials, the environment minister Ricardo Salles appeared to side with the loggers when he gave a speech to a group of them in Rondônia soon afterwards, in which he reportedly told them: “The timber industry deserves to be respected … What happens today in Brazil, unfortunately, is the result of years and years and years of a public policy of producing laws, rules, regulations that are not always related to the real world. What we are doing now is precisely bringing the legal part of the real world that happens in every country from north to south.”

    During a recent G20 meeting, Bolsonaro told the German chancellor Angela Merkel that she had no right to criticise because Brazil’s conservation record was superior to that of Europe’s. This is a dubious claim, according to Climate Observatory, which cites World Bank data that shows Germany has given protected status to a bigger share of its land than Brazil.

    Brazil is also going backwards fast. After an 80% reduction in the rate of deforestation between 2006 and 2012, successive governments have relaxed protections. Clearance has been creeping up. Last year, deforestation rose 13% to the highest level in a decade. This year is on course to be far worse and the trend is back towards the dark days of the early 2000s.

    “Unfortunately, it is absurd, but it should not catch anyone by surprise. President Jair Bolsonaro and minister Ricardo Salles are dismantling our socio-environmental policies,” said Carlos Rittl, the executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, an NGO formed by a coalition of environmental groups.


    He said Salles had eradicated the department responsible for policies to combat deforestation, that no leaders have been appointed in eight of the nine Ibama regional offices, and that operations to combat environmental crimes declined 70% between January and April 2019 compared with the same period last year.

    The Deter satellite data is considered preliminary, but it is usually a guide to the longer-term trends. More detailed annual figures are usually released towards the end of the year, after the National Institute for Space Research has calculated data from the more powerful Prodes satellite system.

    Trees are considered essential to climate stability. Earlier this month, a study indicated that planting a trillion trees could remove two-thirds of all the emissions that have been pumped into the atmosphere by human activities. But scientists say maintaining existing forests, particularly in the tropics, is far more important.
     
  2. Spring Time Gold Member Gold Member

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    You can get absolutely anything & their returns policy are fantastic.:84:
     
  3. cidermaster Gold Member Gold Member

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    Thus is beyond terrible and yet another massive reason why the mega selfish human race is destroying the planet and breeding like horrible rats at a massive pace.
    We are a horrible plague that is way out of control and needs culled big time and will be.
    Hold on better stop this post as I have to deal with 3 orders from another Amazon!
     
  4. Spring Time Gold Member Gold Member

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    Seriously without a doubt a man made natural disaster on a global scale.

    It’s gambling our children & grandchildren’s health & future.
    The fact it can have such a global impact should for me, allow the governments of the world to act in its protection. By the same point the ones producing the pollution without a proper commitment to reducing it ( Kyoto??) should be made to comply.
     
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  5. Gyp Rosetti Gold Member

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    The lungs of the planet being decimated, we are a * disgrace and deserve to be wiped out.
     
  6. Gerry1972 Gold Member Gold Member

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    Really did think it was about Amazon's various cloud services myself.
     
  7. smokie899

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    I speed read it, couldn’t ee Bezos name, speed read it again, nope. So I’m thinking what the * has Jeff bezos Amazon got to do with... doho_O

    When I left school ‘Amazon’ was the worlds greatest forest. Now it’s a * online shop fs
     
  8. Tim-Time 1888 Always look on the bright side of Life Gold Member

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    Climate change isna a problem ... well according to some of the best brains on this forum it's simply a tax raising scam seemingly, so nothing to worry about ..
     
  9. Bunk Moreland

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    Amazon Prime is *, get Netflix or NowTV instead
     
  10. Senna s1979

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    Can we at least wait til we’ve got the 10?
     
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  11. Senna s1979

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    Think this is more a problem with rampant unchecked capitalism than anything else.

    How people can be allowed to just rip the forest apart and sell it for profit it is beyond me.
    Governments and law makers all paid off no doubt all in the name of greed.
    What good is your $billion when your dead and your grandchildren have to move to Mars (a planet with no atmosphere) as it’s better than the state you have left this planet?
     
  12. Callum McGregor The Captain Gold Member

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  13. Dalbeth3

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    Fur * Sake .... Europe. .. USA. ...Japan. .. are spewing out carbon that fast it can't be controlled. ..But ... it's not our fault it's the AMAZONs fault for getting set on fire now they can't help the rest of the world
     
  14. Raoul Duke

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    I think the two biggest contributors to pollution and global warming are india and China.
     
  15. Spring Time Gold Member Gold Member

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    I thought America was second??
     
  16. Raoul Duke

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    They are, usa 2nd India 3rd. My mistake.
     
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  17. Gyp Rosetti Gold Member

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  18. Seán Mac D Gold Member Gold Member

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    Aye, there's a duplicity in developed countries bestowing their virtues onto poorer, developed countries such as India, Brazil, Nigeria when we've had an economic leg-up for decades in part to our reliance on fossil fuels.

    That said, Climate Change is a real issue for the world and will need a unified approach but there has to be a dialogue with the likes of those countries where there is some sort of compensation or economic mitigation for choosing not to continue destroying the rainforest. We are all beneficiaries after-all.
     
  19. leeso-ardoyne

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    Every single one of us has a part to play in this as we go through life accepting capitalism as how we should live. Total distruction of the planet and it ain't going to stop anytime soon. Just be thankful you got the chance to experience it because it could have been worse, you could have been a *
     
  20. cidermaster Gold Member Gold Member

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    Makes me want to throw up what is happening to the Amazon. But the Human Race will pay a massive price for this as this century closes out.