Rainforests are disappearing one acre at a time ...

[ToxicAdam]

... only to be replaced by 50 more acres of regrowth.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/30/science/earth/30forest.html?_r=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Here, and in other tropical countries around the world, small holdings like Ms. Ortega de Wing’s — and much larger swaths of farmland — are reverting to nature, as people abandon their land and move to the cities in search of better livings.

These new “secondary” forests are emerging in Latin America, Asia and other tropical regions at such a fast pace that the trend has set off a serious debate about whether saving primeval rain forest — an iconic environmental cause — may be less urgent than once thought. By one estimate, for every acre of rain forest cut down each year, more than 50 acres of new forest are growing in the tropics on land that was once farmed, logged or ravaged by natural disaster.

Biologists were ignoring these huge population trends and acting as if only original forest has conservation value, and that’s just wrong,” said Joe Wright, a senior scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute here, who set off a firestorm two years ago by suggesting that the new forests could substantially compensate for rain forest destruction.

Scientists massaging and obfuscating the truth? Enviromentalists cashing in on their studies? What ... how is this possible?

I shouldn't jump the gun. I'm sure Joe Wright will issue a denial about this in 5 months and say that he was mistaken.

[ToxicAdam]

http://www.squidoo.com/savetherainforests


It's not too late to donate to these causes and conserve your own acreage of land. Time is running out...

[drew]

Wasn't the counter-argument for this the fact that the regrown secondary forests will never achieve the kind of biodiversity that the original forest had?

thank god.  ave you seen the kind of spiders that live in rainforests?  horrible creatures

nuke the site from orbit its the only way to be sure etc etc

[Mandark]

Wasn't the counter-argument for this the fact that the regrown secondary forests will never achieve the kind of biodiversity that the original forest had?

Heavens no.  The point of the article is obviously that tree-huggers are a cowardly and superstitious lot, and that we should replace the scientific process as it's currently conceived with... *coughs, mumbles*.

[Flannel Boy]

Yeah, if Jennifer Aniston has taught me anything it's that the rainforest fucking sucks.

Great episode of South Park.

And you're right about how the destruction of the rain forest reduces biodiversity.

[ToxicAdam]

Wasn't the counter-argument for this the fact that the regrown secondary forests will never achieve the kind of biodiversity that the original forest had?

I think thats logical, but consider this:

With the heat and rainfall in tropical Panama, new growth is remarkably fast. Within 15 years, abandoned land can contain trees more than 100 feet high. Within 20, a thick rain-forest canopy forms again. Here in the lush, misty hills, it is easy to see rain-forest destruction as part of a centuries-old cycle of human civilization and wilderness, in which each in turn is cleared and replaced by the other. The Mayans first cleared lands here that are now dense forest. The area around Gamboa, cleared when the Panama Canal was built, now looks to the untrained eye like the wildest of jungles.

[Mandark]

Main Entry:
    bio·di·ver·si·ty Listen to the pronunciation of biodiversity
Pronunciation:
    \-də-ˈvər-sə-tē, -dī-\
Function:
    noun
Date:
    1985

: rilly big trees 'n shit

[Flannel Boy]

Main Entry:
    bio·di·ver·si·ty Listen to the pronunciation of biodiversity
Pronunciation:
    \-də-ˈvər-sə-tē, -dī-\
Function:
    noun
Date:
    1985

: rilly big trees 'n shit

spoiler (click to show/hide)

first and last time I ever quote someone's avatar

[close]

[ToxicAdam]

Mersity schmersity. Evolve or die. Pretty soon we can recreate any species from their dna anyways.

Deforestation: The hidden cause of global warming
In the next 24 hours, deforestation will release as much CO2 into the atmosphere as 8 million people flying from London to New York. Stopping the loggers is the fastest and cheapest solution to climate change. So why are global leaders turning a blind eye to this crisis?

The accelerating destruction of the rainforests that form a precious cooling band around the Earth's equator, is now being recognised as one of the main causes of climate change. Carbon emissions from deforestation far outstrip damage caused by planes and automobiles and factories.


It's not too late Mandark, send in your money now!

[recursivelyenumerable]

the 50:1 ratio which is quasi-insinuated by the article, and trumpeted in your post, is a bit misleading, since it appears to be total acreage in process of growing (not annual):annual destruction.  other than that, and googling around, it does look like an area of genuine controversy, which I can't say much about not being an ecologist/whatever myself.  I think the controversy is over the severity of the habitat loss problem and not over whether it exists at all, though.  nobody seems to be saying the secondary forest growth will totally mitigate the loss of primary growth.  incidentally:
http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0113-hance_climate.html

Prominent biologist Joseph Wright, who has come under fire for saying that warnings about habitat destruction in rainforests are exaggerated, passionately argued that climate change is the greatest threat to rainforests. [...]

Wright said that current “conservative” predictions showed that temperatures in the tropics would rise by 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. While this may not seem like much, especially compared to predictions for the Arctic, Wright stated that “tropical species are much more sensitive to small increases in temperature than temperate species”. In addition, he presented information that showed how tropical species would have to travel much greater distances than temperate species to find habitat within their normal range of temperatures. Wright called these two factors—greater sensitivity to temperature change and larger migrations for suitable habitat—a “double whammy” for tropical species. [...]

Extinctions are already occurring across the tropics due to climate change, Wright said, citing the loss of numerous frog species due to the infectious and lethal fungal disease, Chytridiomycosis. The disease has been linked by some scientists to climate change. Calling the extinction in the wild of 165 frog species due to this disease “a mass extinction of tropical montane frogs”, Wright emphasized that he believes global warming will affect the tropics more than any other ecosystem. [...]

Ironically Wright, who has been accused by some of naivety and dangerous optimism due to his views on rainforest loss, proved the most pessimistic of the panel when it came to the rainforest’s future. Predicting that climate change would forever alter the ecosystem of rainforests, Wright said that “we have no way to predict what it will look like” or how many species would be able to adapt to even a small rise in temperature in the region. Wright told the audience that they should think of today’s tropical forests like the lost ecosystems of America, such as the vast forests that Europeans found upon arrival in the 16th Century or the Great Plains once filled with bison, antelope, and top predators.

“Today it is still possible to see such [intact] ecosystems in the tropics”, Wright said, encouraging the audience to visit tropical forests before, like the temperate forests of North America and the Great Plains, they are changed inalterably and much is lost.

[ToxicAdam]

Hasn't the majority of our warming come from the Arctic and not the tropics?  Seems very premature to to attribute anything currently happening to "climate change", since it has remained relatively stable .

[Flannel Boy]

Evolve or die.

I don't think most species can evolve quickly enough to survive our destructive ways. If they can, they should evolve to appear like books, Terry Reid's breasts, or third world children, something most of us would never want to touch.

[recursivelyenumerable]

that is addressed in the very excerpt I quoted!  i will bold the relevant sentence for you.

[ToxicAdam]

that is addressed in the very excerpt I quoted!  i will bold the relevant sentence for you.

I read that .. that's just computer modeling done with insufficient/incorrect information.

Later in that article it gives an example of a species being wiped out because of climate change. That's what I was referring to.

[recursivelyenumerable]

Huh?  He's talking about tropical rain forest species being more sensitive to relatively small changes in temperature/climate than temperate species.  Where do computer models come in?

Anyway, this is just one biologist's take on the situation. 

[drozmight]

Wasn't the counter-argument for this the fact that the regrown secondary forests will never achieve the kind of biodiversity that the original forest had?

thank god.  ave you seen the kind of spiders that live in rainforests?  horrible creatures

nuke the site from orbit its the only way to be sure etc etc

but what if those spiders could cure cancer!!

also wait what... they'll mutate and attack NYC.

[Tauntaun]

[youtube=560,345]R6BeRb_y5x0[/youtube]

 

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

thank god.  I knew I was right to advocate clear-cutting the shit out of forests all along.

[xnikki118x]

I still advocate to save the rain forests anyway. Coral reefs and wetlands, too.

[The Fake Shemp]

But rainforests make the best toilet paper, Nikki!

[Robo]

Well that's good, because I just preserved 200 additional acres!

  Tropicana

  ToxicAdam

[Boogie]

Why, exactly, does ToxicAdam believe he is smarter than the most prominent and respected scientists of our age?

[The Fake Shemp]

To be fair, he is a Republican.

[Flannel Boy]

The jury is still out on science.

[ToxicAdam]

Why, exactly, does ToxicAdam believe he is smarter than the most prominent and respected scientists of our age?

I read blogs and shit..

[Phoenix Dark]

The jury is still out on science.

After last night's game...not so much 

[TVC15]

But rainforests make the best toilet paper, Nikki!

Willco, wrong as usual.



As I illustrated in another thread, for like 16 bucks max, you get about 2 years worth of toilet paper.