Rainforest Deforestation

As i sat, reading the list of facts on Rainforest Deforestation i found myself having the same reaction as if someone had punched my brother in the face.

Here is the list if you would like to take a look.

Facts 1
Facts 2

I feel.....i am compelled to do something. I don't know what exactly yet.....I dont know if there is anything i can do.

I mean, short of physically travelling to the Amazon and taking a bazuka to the logging machines is there anything of significance any of us can do. Just every minute - and thats literally every minute - more and more destruction takes place and i cannot stand it any longer.

• We lose 50 species every day -- 2 species per hour -- due to tropical deforestation.
  
• Over 2000 tropical forest plants have been identified as having anti-cancer properties. However, scientists have only tested 1 in 10 tropical forest plants for these properties and only intensively screened 1 in 100.
  
• About 2,000 trees per minute are cut down in the rainforests.
  

You could always purchase rainforest land and keep it protected.

Im not talking having to shell out thousands or millions of dollars though that would be nice There are various programs like "Protect-an-Acre program" where you can donate money to protect a small bit and its really really cheap.

Sometimes one dollar protects one acre of rainforest, and sometimes it protects twenty acres of rainforest.

So really it can be cheap. Theres other org. that do this type of thing so look around and find ones that suit you best.

www.rainforestheroes.com...

[edit on 18-6-2006 by ShadowXIX]

Shadow88

Images like that can indeed be very distressing...

What is that are those all chopped and stacked logs?

I found another site you might be interested in Shadow88

I just funded the preservation of 101.4 square feet of endangered rainforest and anyone eles can for free.

www.therainforestsite.com...

Its a rainforest site with those adds they are paid per click and that money is used to purchase rainforest land. So even the poorest or youngest people online could help a bit.

It's even worse.

The Amazon could end up a desert .......

Rain forests generate their own local weather - water evaporates from the trees, eventually forming clouds which then bring more rain. It's a self perpetuating cycle. But the more of the forest that gets destroyed, the greater the likelihood of that cycle being broken. And if the rains stop, the Amazon dries up ....

As happened last year.

news.bbc.co.uk...

Rains generated by the Amazon also feed the Andean rivers and glaciers - one possible contributory reason for recent rapid decline in Andean glaciers is that there is less precipitation due to destruction of the forest.

5000 years ago the Amazon rainforest did not exist. It was a savannah. Climate change created the conditions for the area to afforest. It is all a cycle. Whether humans are a part of the cycle or not is irrelevant.

Originally posted by dave_54
It is all a cycle. Whether humans are a part of the cycle or not is irrelevant.

Now there is some logic you can bank with....

Death is part of a cycle too...but I sincerely doubt our criminal system would consider the one holding the knife irrelevant.

Oh, and the part about 5000 years ago:

Ancient sediments show rain forests covered Amazon basin in last ice age

Radiocarbon dating and pollen analysis of sediments from a small lake in Brazil indicate that the western Amazon River basin was covered with lush, tropical rain forest 14,000 to 30,000 years ago—a time when glaciers covered the northern latitudes and most scientists believed the Amazon basin was a vast, dry grassland. The research is significant because it is the first direct, dated physical evidence from anywhere in the lowland rain forest of the Amazon basin indicating the type of climate in this region during the last ice age.

"These data will come as quite a shock to many paleoclimatologists," Paul Colinvaux, senior scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and leader of the study, says. "They contradict the widespread belief that a drier climate during the last ice age turned the Amazon lowlands into a savanna with isolated pockets of rain forest." Colinvaux also serves as a research scientist at the University of Michigan's Center for Great Lakes and Aquatic Sciences.

Colinvaux and colleagues at STRI, Duke University and the Field Museum in Chicago based their conclusions on a 7-meter-long (23-foot-long) sediment core they drilled from the bottom of Lake Pata, which is located in the dense tropical Amazon rain forest of northwestern Brazil. Radiocarbon dating of material in the undisturbed sediment layers confirmed that the top 1.6 meters (5 feet) were deposited on the bottom of Lake Pata between 14,200 and 30,800 years ago—the time of maximum glacial coverage in the last ice age.

More...

[edit on 19-6-2006 by loam]

Well sure, if the madness stops then it'll regenerate. But who's going to wait around for 5000 years to be able to breathe again.

We've already lost rainforests in India and a lot in North Africa, and it is from direct human causes, it's not even secondary like the carbon emission stuff (for a start, the more trees and plant life there are then pollution isn't such a problem anyway, because plants eat CO2 plus they release O2). We've lost forests all over the place because people chopped them all down. It's sickening.

Trees and plants do a lot more good that some people seem to be aware of. Areas without them are ugly and dead and far more prone to violence and unrest and bad health. It's creating Hell on Earth to take the plants away. Every little wrong-thing makes it worse on any scale. Where I live for example it's common to tarmac roads and pavements right up to any tree trunks of any trees that happen to be there. In other places in the UK it is not like that and they will not allow weedkillers used by the councils or the removal of wild plants from the roadside and pavements, and those places are much nicer to be in. By light years they are far nicer places.

Originally posted by loam

Originally posted by dave_54
It is all a cycle. Whether humans are a part of the cycle or not is irrelevant.

Now there is some logic you can bank with....

Death is part of a cycle too...but I sincerely doubt our criminal system would consider the one holding the knife irrelevant.

Oh, and the part about 5000 years ago:

Ancient sediments show rain forests covered Amazon basin in last ice age

Radiocarbon dating and pollen analysis of sediments from a small lake in Brazil indicate that the western Amazon River basin was covered with lush, tropical rain forest 14,000 to 30,000 years ago—a time when glaciers covered the northern latitudes and most scientists believed the Amazon basin was a vast, dry grassland. The research is significant because it is the first direct, dated physical evidence from anywhere in the lowland rain forest of the Amazon basin indicating the type of climate in this region during the last ice age.

"These data will come as quite a shock to many paleoclimatologists," Paul Colinvaux, senior scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and leader of the study, says. "They contradict the widespread belief that a drier climate during the last ice age turned the Amazon lowlands into a savanna with isolated pockets of rain forest." Colinvaux also serves as a research scientist at the University of Michigan's Center for Great Lakes and Aquatic Sciences.

Colinvaux and colleagues at STRI, Duke University and the Field Museum in Chicago based their conclusions on a 7-meter-long (23-foot-long) sediment core they drilled from the bottom of Lake Pata, which is located in the dense tropical Amazon rain forest of northwestern Brazil. Radiocarbon dating of material in the undisturbed sediment layers confirmed that the top 1.6 meters (5 feet) were deposited on the bottom of Lake Pata between 14,200 and 30,800 years ago—the time of maximum glacial coverage in the last ice age.

More...

[edit on 19-6-2006 by loam]

One study does not truth make.

And your post still validates mine. 14,000 years ago it was jungle, 5000 years ago a savannah, then jungle again. A cycle.

Originally posted by dave_54
One study does not truth make.

From the same study...

Widespread acceptance of an "arid Amazon grassland" during the ice age was based on the existence of ancient sand dunes and deposits of windblown dust found in parts of South America north and south of the Amazon River basin, Colinvaux says. "Evidence of aridity in other areas was simply extrapolated to include the Amazon. With no data to the contrary, there was no reason to question the assumption."

Your studies are where?

Originally posted by dave_54
And your post still validates mine. 14,000 years ago it was jungle, 5000 years ago a savannah, then jungle again. A cycle.

Care to point out where it says that?

Wow, many thanks already for all your useful information and input. It will take me a while to take it all in but keep it coming! Im about to look at the sites that buy land at no expense to yourself. Sounds suspicious, but then again, im a bit conspiratorial-minded.

I don't believe one person can make a difference, but i am a firm believer that he/she can be the first domino.

We have all the power in the world (according to some) but we can't use it constructively apparently, cyclial BS is an excuse, nothing more, we're here, we have the choice and we constantly fubar it. if vegetation died by itself, you'd have a point, but cutting and burning down vast areas of forest for a couple of years' harvest is plain crazy.


economically speaking, this makes NO sense whatsoever UNLESS a) you're among the 0.0001% who get to rape the world, because everyone worships your money b) you want to make sure that not only will you get revenue asap, but also that c) no-on else will ever find anything else but wasteland.

There's a hidden law of markets, the law of 'scarcity by resource denial' if you will, which basically revolves around poisoning the well....

f-ex. ivory 'hunting' makes no sense, in terms of contemporary market theory, as these animals die sooner or later, allowing you to collect the ivory. The only reason you'd kill them is to make sure no-one else gets a chance to harvest. that's why antiquities and art work are market poster children, no replacement ever.

Originally posted by Shadow88
I don't believe one person can make a difference, but i am a firm believer that he/she can be the first domino.

I really think a single person could make a difference you just need alot of money. The land is dirt cheap down there imagine if Bill Gates decided instead of investing those billions he poured into 3rd world AIDs problems bought land in the Amazon with that money instead. He could have bought millions and millions of square acres.

Bill Gates is the extreme example that could and has poured billions in charity but even multi-millionaires could spend hundereds of thousands and create some decent size preserves.

14,000 years ago it was jungle, 5000 years ago a savannah, then jungle again. A cycle.

Yes but, that savannah doesn't appear to have been caused by anyone chopping all the trees down with chainsaws to make way for McBurger CowDeath.

Ok perhaps the rainforest does fade away to a savannah every thousand/million year cycle, i cant deny the theory unless disproved.

HOWEVER

Riddle me this: Where do the 6 billion+ extra people not present at the last cycle get there oxygen once we have cut down all the rainforests?

[edit on 20-6-2006 by Shadow88]

Originally posted by Shadow88
Ok perhaps the rainforest does fade away to a savannah every thousand/million year cycle, i cant deny the theory unless disproved.

HOWEVER

Riddle me this: Where do the 6 billion+ extra people not present at the last cycle get there oxygen once we have cut down all the rainforests?

[edit on 20-6-2006 by Shadow88]

From the oceans -- the biggest source of oxygen.

The world's temperate and boreal forests also remain producing oxygen -- more than the rainforests according to some models. Forests managed for timber production also more oxygen and sequester more carbon than preserved old growth forests.

Will someone show me a study, not a mere assertion, that says the Amazon was once grassland?

i doubt it was. A study noted above states it wasnt. So i don't know.

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An estimated acre value on the entire rainforest is £28.5 billion ($50 billion). However when a deal is made Brazil can demand more per acre so it is likely a lot more, i would have to find out more about it.

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The population of Britain is approximately 59 million. So if each person were to donate just £2 ONCE, then that would be £118 million worth of acres of rainforest right there.

America - 295 million. So a single donation of $2 would be $590 million's worth.

While i know it is implausible to make a population in its entirety do so, but you see the point. Its not out of the realms of possibility to buy up large amounts once sufficient support is gained.

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Dave_54 this isnt the argument. No ones denying what your saying as a possibility. Granted it is possible that the theory could be true, but what we are doing is destroying too much too quickly and to an extent far beyond that of a natural growth and fade. The problem here is that because of what we are doing to the rainforest, alongside other factors we are causing irreversable-in-the-short term damage to our planet.

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Every day cures for diseases are lost forever. Read the facts in my first post.

[edit on 20-6-2006 by Shadow88]

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
I really think a single person could make a difference you just need alot of money. The land is dirt cheap down there imagine if Bill Gates decided instead of investing those billions he poured into 3rd world AIDs problems bought land in the Amazon with that money instead. He could have bought millions and millions of square acres.

Wouldn't it make more sense if Mr.Bezos, who owns Amazon.com, does that? That would give his domain name all the more weight

Ironic and good for his economy lol. The phrase "Rainforest Deforestation" usually carries a motherload of negative......everything in relation to economy.