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The chart at http://d1vn86fw4xmcz1.cloudfront.net/content/royptb/363/1501/2299/F11.large.jpg http://d1vn86fw4xmcz1.cloudfront.net/content/royptb/363/1501... (pu
by mangeletti 11y ago
The chart at http://d1vn86fw4xmcz1.cloudfront.net/content/royptb/363/1501/2299/F11.large.jpg http://d1vn86fw4xmcz1.cloudfront.net/content/royptb/363/1501... (put together by The Royal Society) shows that most deforestation in Eastern Canada occurred over 400 years ago. This one http://mongabay-images.s3.amazonaws.com/12/1203all-time-deforestation.jpg http://mongabay-images.s3.amazonaws.com/12/1203all-time-defo... shows a shift starting about 300 years ago from temperate forest removal to tropical forest removal. Together, they start to paint a picture of massive deforestation, hundreds of years ago.
It's important to note that history didn't begin in 1880, and that some effects lag their cause. Forests, along with oceanic flora, normally sequester Carbon from CO2 and return O2 to the atmosphere. However, this effect only takes place when the forests are actually there.
I don't have any religion, one way or another, about climate change and its causes, but I think we won't learn anything from media propaganda like this. It doesn't even bring up the possibility of albedo playing a role in climate change?
- bharath28 11y agoI didn't read the whole paper (where that graph came from), so my apologies if i am misstating anything. It appears that the paper is focused mostly on the forests in Eastern Canada. At first glance, I'd find the slope on that graph (last 500 years) very hard to believe if it were for all of planet earth.
- mangeletti 11y agoI've updated my comment to add another chart. The chart was intended to reflect the relative rate of deforestation, but the second one does a better job, and is even more alarming.
- bharath28 11y agoThanks! And alarming indeed.
- snowwrestler 11y agoWhile forests represent a sizable reservoir of fixed carbon, the amount of carbon they fix in any given year is actually not huge (trees grow slowly). It would not nearly be enough to offset our current rate of burning of fossil fuels, for instance.
- munificent 11y ago> It doesn't even bring up the possibility of albedo playing a role in climate change? Isn't that exactly what the "So If It's Not Nature, Is It Deforestation?" slide is about?
- mangeletti 11y agoNo. The topic of deforestation covers a host of issues, but albedo can be changed without regard for forests. For instance, covering all the empty land black-top roads and parking lots, and putting black shingles on the roofs of hundreds of millions of houses adds a lot of dark surface area to the planet.
- antidaily 11y ago"media propaganda".
- jff 11y agoYou're right, it was silly of him to repeat himself