7 ms·

Frankly this is a horrible headline. Even if fires have declined since 2003, we should still worry greatly about the Amazon fires. It seems that the argument he

Frankly this is a horrible headline. Even if fires have declined since 2003, we should still worry greatly about the Amazon fires. It seems that the argument here is that we need to pick up the pace on fires since they have been declining. As usual, Forbes sticking to sensationalist headlines as opposed to informing ones.

jamesrcole 7y ago
> As usual, Forbes sticking to sensationalist headlines as opposed to informing ones. How is their headline sensationalist? As far as I can tell, it is literally the opposite of how you describe it. I don't see how trying to tell the truth about something can be equated with trying to downplay the situation or encouraging people not to bother about it. You seem to be basically saying "this situation is bad so it is better to mislead people about it (by claiming the severity of the current situation is unprecedented)". Misrepresenting things might seem to have short-term benefits but it's dangerous because it erodes trust in things like the media, and ultimately can harm important causes.
- aelmeleegy 7y ago
  Responding to the first part, the headline goes "Forget the Amazon hype". It's not hype it's literally fire.
  - jamesrcole 7y ago
    "hype" is referring to the reporting of it in the news and social media, not the fire itself.
    - SiempreViernes 7y ago
      That might well be the justification of it, but there is no mention of "media" or "reporting" in that headline: a headline that does not include in it the supposed subject matter is a poor headline indeed. You need to cough up some pretty extraordinary evidence for the claim that the editor writing that headline would not be aware that it is misleading to leave out the subject entirely.
      - jamesrcole 7y ago
        The word "hype" inherently refers to what people are saying about something, not the thing itself. The issue is about what people are saying. The headline wasn't "Forget about the Amazon fires", because it was talking about the hype not the fires. What headline would you use instead?
  - abernard1 7y ago
    From some historical data on fire coverage in the Amazon here: https://www.globalfiredata.org/forecast.html#amazon https://www.globalfiredata.org/forecast.html#amazon This doesn't really seem to be that big of a deal. It appears to be worse than previous years, but nothing to write home about. If it's such a huge crisis that we need non-stop media coverage about it, why wasn't it 80%-of-a-crisis last year or the year before? I think the answer, which the article is addressing, is that people's ignorance of the issue has allowed media outlets to keep pushing a sensational story, when the reality is much more banal. I think that fairly classifies as "hype".
    - dgellow 7y ago
      From your link: > Cumulative active fire detections of the fire season from May 1st through August 22nd, 2019 from MODIS and VIIRS confirm that the 2019 fire season has the highest fire count since 2012 (the start of the VIIRS record) across the Legal Amazon. In addition, fires in 2019 are more intense than previous years, measured in terms of fire radiative power, consistent with the observed increase in deforestation. I think it's great that we have media coverage, and it would have been better to have coverage for previous years.
      - abernard1 7y ago
        If you drill down into the graphs of those regions, you can see other proxies for fires since 2003. It is not clear that there wouldn't have been MODIS and VIIRS results much higher prior to 2012 had those measurements been available. Even since 2012, this year is higher, but not remarkably so, given that during summer it increases about 10x over a fairly high fire baseline. From all accounts, fires on the order of this magnitude have been annually occurring for decades in Brazil. It is hard to take the media criticisms seriously in the face of this data. It's also hard to believe that the Amazon is in imminent danger, given the duration of this "problem."
        dgellow 7y ago
        Sure, don’t take media criticisms seriously, that’s almost a constant, their content is of course heavily editorialized with a focus on sensationalism. Still a lot of people who aren’t living in South America wouldn’t know that the Amazon region has fire issues without the current media trend. The Amazon forest won’t die right now, but the fact that forest fires are a common occurrence since decades is definitely an issue given that they are mostly caused by human activities (with help from the local climate).
- SiempreViernes 7y ago
  They put out a title with such poor statistical reasoning that they might as well have said "Forget about the Syrian civil war, the number of violent deaths globally have gone down!". I hope it is clear from this second example that the headline is just putting two pretty unrelated things next to each other and hope it gives clicks. You can mount a coherent critique of the media hype cycle without resorting to bascialy false reasoning.
  - jamesrcole 7y ago
    > They put out a title with such poor statistical reasoning that they might as well have said "Forget about the Syrian civil war, .." The correct analogy here would be "Forget the hype about the Syrian civil war" if there was inaccurate information being spread about that war. That has nothing to do with downplaying the actual severity of the war.
    - SiempreViernes 7y ago
      What? The title you are defending is downplaying ("forget the hype") the severity of the amazon fires by including fire rates in completely different parts of the world. This is exactly like downplaying the severity of a civil war by pointing out that the rest of world is not taking part.
      - jamesrcole 7y ago
        [EDIT: any of the people downvoting this care to say why you think its points are wrong or irrelevant to what is being discussed? The article is literally about the world-wide situation, and it's misleading to present the current discussion, and what I've been arguing about, as about the title in isolation. The headline is clearly just using the Amazon fires has a shorthand for the overall situation.] Did you read the article? It's literally about the world-wide situation, and the reporting there has been on the world-wide situation.
        mistersquid 7y ago
partiallypro 7y ago
Does the article suggest that we shouldn't take it seriously? No. It just says the media is being sensationalist, and in some ways (the article doesn't say this)...it could honestly be driven by mild racism. Since a lot of it points at a South American (not-white-enough) country being too incompetent to take care of the situation...when stats back up the very fact that incidents are actually declining. That being said, the Brazilian government has refused most western aide.

jamesrcole 7y ago

> As usual, Forbes sticking to sensationalist headlines as opposed to informing ones. How is their headline sensationalist? As far as I can tell, it is literally the opposite of how you describe it. I don't see how trying to tell the truth about something can be equated with trying to downplay the situation or encouraging people not to bother about it. You seem to be basically saying "this situation is bad so it is better to mislead people about it (by claiming the severity of the current situation is unprecedented)". Misrepresenting things might seem to have short-term benefits but it's dangerous because it erodes trust in things like the media, and ultimately can harm important causes.

aelmeleegy 7y ago
Responding to the first part, the headline goes "Forget the Amazon hype". It's not hype it's literally fire.
- jamesrcole 7y ago
  "hype" is referring to the reporting of it in the news and social media, not the fire itself.
  - SiempreViernes 7y ago
    That might well be the justification of it, but there is no mention of "media" or "reporting" in that headline: a headline that does not include in it the supposed subject matter is a poor headline indeed. You need to cough up some pretty extraordinary evidence for the claim that the editor writing that headline would not be aware that it is misleading to leave out the subject entirely.
    - jamesrcole 7y ago
      The word "hype" inherently refers to what people are saying about something, not the thing itself. The issue is about what people are saying. The headline wasn't "Forget about the Amazon fires", because it was talking about the hype not the fires. What headline would you use instead?
- abernard1 7y ago
  From some historical data on fire coverage in the Amazon here: https://www.globalfiredata.org/forecast.html#amazon https://www.globalfiredata.org/forecast.html#amazon This doesn't really seem to be that big of a deal. It appears to be worse than previous years, but nothing to write home about. If it's such a huge crisis that we need non-stop media coverage about it, why wasn't it 80%-of-a-crisis last year or the year before? I think the answer, which the article is addressing, is that people's ignorance of the issue has allowed media outlets to keep pushing a sensational story, when the reality is much more banal. I think that fairly classifies as "hype".
  - dgellow 7y ago
    From your link: > Cumulative active fire detections of the fire season from May 1st through August 22nd, 2019 from MODIS and VIIRS confirm that the 2019 fire season has the highest fire count since 2012 (the start of the VIIRS record) across the Legal Amazon. In addition, fires in 2019 are more intense than previous years, measured in terms of fire radiative power, consistent with the observed increase in deforestation. I think it's great that we have media coverage, and it would have been better to have coverage for previous years.
    - abernard1 7y ago
      If you drill down into the graphs of those regions, you can see other proxies for fires since 2003. It is not clear that there wouldn't have been MODIS and VIIRS results much higher prior to 2012 had those measurements been available. Even since 2012, this year is higher, but not remarkably so, given that during summer it increases about 10x over a fairly high fire baseline. From all accounts, fires on the order of this magnitude have been annually occurring for decades in Brazil. It is hard to take the media criticisms seriously in the face of this data. It's also hard to believe that the Amazon is in imminent danger, given the duration of this "problem."
      - dgellow 7y ago
        Sure, don’t take media criticisms seriously, that’s almost a constant, their content is of course heavily editorialized with a focus on sensationalism. Still a lot of people who aren’t living in South America wouldn’t know that the Amazon region has fire issues without the current media trend. The Amazon forest won’t die right now, but the fact that forest fires are a common occurrence since decades is definitely an issue given that they are mostly caused by human activities (with help from the local climate).
SiempreViernes 7y ago
They put out a title with such poor statistical reasoning that they might as well have said "Forget about the Syrian civil war, the number of violent deaths globally have gone down!". I hope it is clear from this second example that the headline is just putting two pretty unrelated things next to each other and hope it gives clicks. You can mount a coherent critique of the media hype cycle without resorting to bascialy false reasoning.
- jamesrcole 7y ago
  > They put out a title with such poor statistical reasoning that they might as well have said "Forget about the Syrian civil war, .." The correct analogy here would be "Forget the hype about the Syrian civil war" if there was inaccurate information being spread about that war. That has nothing to do with downplaying the actual severity of the war.
  - SiempreViernes 7y ago
    What? The title you are defending is downplaying ("forget the hype") the severity of the amazon fires by including fire rates in completely different parts of the world. This is exactly like downplaying the severity of a civil war by pointing out that the rest of world is not taking part.
    - jamesrcole 7y ago
      [EDIT: any of the people downvoting this care to say why you think its points are wrong or irrelevant to what is being discussed? The article is literally about the world-wide situation, and it's misleading to present the current discussion, and what I've been arguing about, as about the title in isolation. The headline is clearly just using the Amazon fires has a shorthand for the overall situation.] Did you read the article? It's literally about the world-wide situation, and the reporting there has been on the world-wide situation.
      - mistersquid 7y ago

partiallypro 7y ago

Does the article suggest that we shouldn't take it seriously? No. It just says the media is being sensationalist, and in some ways (the article doesn't say this)...it could honestly be driven by mild racism. Since a lot of it points at a South American (not-white-enough) country being too incompetent to take care of the situation...when stats back up the very fact that incidents are actually declining. That being said, the Brazilian government has refused most western aide.