The Amazon burning
Let's
clarify some things that are not being said well. There’s a lot of
misinformation in every viral news and I didn't want to hurry. You
have to be very careful with what you find in the networks. One
cannot make articles with true and reliable information every day
without a whole production team behind. Doing it alone is impossible.
That can only be done by entertainment media and, if so, it should
not be taken seriously because its main objective is to entertain,
even if they show news.
Now
to the point, the news about The Amazon began badly, full of
misinformation, even from important companies. Barbarities were said
from the beginning, like it is burning due to climate change, and it
is not that forest fires cannot happen due to this phenomenon. The
climate crisis manifests with hurricanes, floods, heat waves and
forest fires, but this is not the case and you should already know.
To
understand this you must first have one thing clear. Forest fires
around the world are not always bad, they are often part of the
ecosystem although it sounds strange and illogical. They are a
natural and necessary part of the ecosystem and even healthy forests
contain dead trees and decaying plant matter. When a fire occurs and
turns them to ashes, the nutrients return to the ground instead of
being trapped in the old vegetation. When fire occurs in dry weeds,
it cleanses so that sunlight can reach the forest floor and encourage
the growth of native species. Yes, fire is a determining factor in
freeing these plants from invasive weeds and even helps eliminate
diseases or groups of insects that may have been causing damage. Most
young and healthy trees are strong and resilient enough to survive a
forest fire and usually begin their rapid growth soon.
Actually
this has already been studied. There are reports that say young
forests that recover from fire are home to more diverse species in
both plants and animals. This is because the remains of burned trees
offer attractive habitats for birds and small mammals. Nutrients from
burned vegetation continue to seep into the soil to feed the birth of
new plants. Although some animals are injured or die from forest
fires, this always happens of course, most survive. Most animals can
smell the fire, even when it is quite small and miles away. Deer and
bears will always flee the area. While others like insects and small
mammals will be buried in the ground until the flames pass. Although
some animals can be displaced, because this also happens during a
forest fire, the burned land will finally provide a new home ideal
for other animals, a home that is full of thicker vegetation that is
fed by rich soil and nutrients. This is because forest fires can
create a bufette of everything that can be eaten. For example,
several types of insects are going to start eating their way through
fire-devastated territory as they bury themselves in the remaining
wood.
In
some countries like the USA, fires are very necessary. For example,
an investigation that was done in Florida, an experiment that lasted
several decades, showed results confirming this. It was not allowed
to burn a strip of land on nine hectares during that time and what
happened? Well, the diversity of the plants decreased by 90% and a
species of bird, the red-headed woodpeckers, disappeared completely.
This ecosystem, like others, need fire to thrive.
What
I’m trying to say with this is that forest fires are not always
bad, but the what’s happening now in the Amazon is different. The
fires there are not part of the ecosystem, they are intentional. But
they are not intentional in the way that a pyromaniac is burning
them. It is intentional in the way of: “This whole area is of no
use to me. There are too many trees, it would be more productive if
it had cows instead of trees, many cows”, business. So the Amazon
is not burning by accident, it is being burned by people who sees
nothing but money there. This is the first point to understand.
Does
this mean that the Amazon doen’t burn naturally? No, sometimes
natural fires happen but this is not the case. It’s being abusively
burned for personal and political interests and, in one way or
another, we also contribute by eating meat. That business is very
profitable and will always be there, unless we consciously begin to
reduce meat consumption.
Now,
of course it is a serious situation, but how serious?
One
of the problems with misinformation on the Internet is that it’s
not only done by malicious people, it’s also done by people who try
to raise awareness about an issue as important as this, the
environment. Here many have made the mistake of not corroborating a
number that is being repeated everywhere, the 20%, that the Amazon
produces 20 percent of the Earth's oxygen. It is everywhere. Surely
you have seen it.
When
this type of news emerges, with important data that seems so
relevant, you should question everything and ask for sources, ask for
information. Where did they get that number. No one really knows
where that number came from. Someone said it out there and it was
endlessly repeated.
According
to Jonathan Foley, executive director of the California Academy of
Sciences and founder of Project Drawdown, a research group focused on
climate change, it is mathematically impossible for the Amazon to
produce so much oxygen. He believes that this number could have been
originated from the fact that all tropical forests, including those
in Africa and Indonesia, produce 20 percent of oxygen from
terrestrial sources. Combining the land and the ocean, which also
produces oxygen, tropical forests represent only 10 percent of the
world production. Reducing that, Foley estimates that it is only
possible that the Amazon only produces an estimated 5 or 6 percent.
Of course it would be necessary to do more detailed studies to get a
better estimate.
But
this discrepancy does not make the matter less tragic. A lot of
what’s being said in the news is true.
How
does this affect the fauna and flora of the area? Tropical forests as
a whole contain approximately half of the terrestrial biodiversity
and the Amazon rainforest is a huge part of that. So when we burn it
we are losing species, we are losing habitats, we are losing the
lands that belong to native communities, lands that they have had for
thousands of years.
To
raise the alarm even more, there is the issue of climate change,
since around 10 percent of our CO2 emissions worldwide come from
deforestation. If this rises again in Brazil, climate change will
worsen even more. We are losing one or two decades of progress. It
should be seen as a big problem for the world in terms of climate
change and a terrifying problem for local and regional people who
depend on the forest and have preserved them for so long. It is a
great tragedy that should not be taken lightly. Please be careful
when you believe in people who make content massively just for
entertainment. Their goal is, as stated, to entertain. In general, we
who dedicate to this must be as rigorous as possible with the
information given.
Now,
the best way we have to fight against the interests of people who
only cares about generate profits, is to reduce or eliminate our meat
consumption. You've probably heard it from other people too. We can
press by just doing that, but we can also press by accepting,
understanding that every extremism, that every nationalism, every
type of racism, everything ultra, anything connected with all those
things is wrong. All those things that I’ve just mentioned have a
common denominator: they don’t accept critic, they don’t accept
their own mistakes and leave no room to self-correction. These
ideologies are a step back for progress. Be very careful to support
people like this when the time comes.
I
am also leaving a link with a lot guidance on what we can do to help
fight this disaster.
Well,
what’s going to happen now? How bad is the situation ?. Some
computer models, not all of them, show a hypothetical scenario in
which, when we wipe any rainforest, it begins to heat up almost
immediately and the surrounding atmosphere dries up. That is, if
you’re in a forest it feels cool and humid, but when large areas of
that forest are cut down, the surrounding air warms and dries,
affecting even the patterns of rainfall. The serious problem here is
that if we begin to cut more of the Amazon, in theory, we could reach
a point where the rest of the forest also dries up and there is no
going back. If this happens, the Amazon could suddenly change from
being a rainforest to a dry ecosystem, similar to the African
savanna. Scientists are not absolutely sure that this will happen but
mere possibility sounds terrifying. So what is happening is serious.
It is not good to minimize the matter or spread wrong information.
Well, we already know what to do if we want to keep living on a green
planet, and we want the same to our children.
Sources:
Benefits of Planned Forest Fires Are CitedFire Ecology
Wildfire and ecosystems
Other links of interest:
RAINFOREST ON FIRE
Deathwatch for the Amazon
How does a forest fire benefit living things?
Jonathan Foley's tweet
Amazon deforestation accelerating towards unrecoverable 'tipping point'
Brazil’s Amazon has burned this badly before. This year’s fires are still bad
10% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Come from Deforestation
As The Amazon Fires Spread, So Did This Unfounded Statistic
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