
Show HN: A Twitter bot I made that posts real-time deforestation data - imnotanerd
https://twitter.com/ForestsWar
======
imnotanerd
Heads up:

[1] This is a project I've been working in about a year now and is an honorary
successor to a similar project a friend started.

You can read in detail how it works at
[https://imnotanerd.herokuapp.com/3](https://imnotanerd.herokuapp.com/3).

Basically it takes data from the API at globalforestwatch.org that uses
satellite imagery to gather area of potential forest loss and paints it in a
map to make it easy to imagine.

There is no consideration about forest regrowth. This bot does not track
forestal area changes, it tracks deforestation.

[2] I'd like to get some community feedback. The bot has now been running for
quite some time and it looks like now it works with consistency (The GFW API
data is not reliable when recently published).

Mainly I'd like to see how this bot can be improved regarding the data
treatment and the display of it, as I still think the maps, despite being
accurate, are a little "underperformant" and could be improved.

[3] Yes. I posted this twice, I forgot to put "Show HN" in the title the first
time and I realised too late. Now I can't edit nor remove the previous
submission.

~~~
abpavel
I see a number of issues:

1\. no deforestation before July 9th.

2\. In 10 days between Aug4 and Aug14 2% of the area was deforested,
signifying all forrest will be gone in about 1.5 years. However forrest area
in 2015 was almost the same size as reported total. Can't be right. Are you
mixing ha and km2 by any chance?

3\. No tracking between what is part of Forest Management Act, what are is
part of designated production forest, and what is illegal deforestation.

4\. No data on loss due to natural causes such as wind, fire, and no data on
reforestation numbers.

~~~
imnotanerd
1\. That's the date the bot started tracking. Actually, deforestation data
starts in 2015 but I thought it'd be dishonest of the bot to count in
deforestation that happened before the bot release. First drafts of the bot
worked this way but that behavior was abandoned.

2\. What do you mean by 2%? I guarantee I'm not mixing units, the remaining
area shown is the remaining forestal area for the country in display, meaning
that if the deforestation rhythm keeps that way, Suriname will be completely
deforestated in 1.5 years.

3\. The GLAD alerts dataset, which the bot takes as data source, don't make
any distinction between forestal area of any type, they just track
deforestation based on changes comparison in satellite imagery, Landsat 7 & 8
being the main imagery sources.

4\. Then again, GLAD alerts does not provide any info on the causes of the
deforestation.

I think globalforestswatch.org have an API based around industrial logging
that let's you track industry-based deforestation only, but it's based on in-
site reports and it's not as reliable as satellite-based GLAD alerts.

~~~
abpavel
Thanks for the reply. For point 2, the source states that from 2001 to 2019
1.3% of the tree cover was lost [0]. However in the twitter feed the loss is
2% per 10 days.

[0] [https://gfw.global/3gm1aRN](https://gfw.global/3gm1aRN)

~~~
imnotanerd
You are looking at the forest cover lost _in Suriname_ only for that time
period.

The bot gathers _global_ forest cover loss for a given day and compares the
aggregated of every country against the selected country from the list.

I thought I made it already pretty clear on the way the statuses are written,
how would you write them to make it clear that its global area compared to
that country rather as that country area only?

------
dj_mc_merlin
"Here we analyse 35 years’ worth of satellite data and provide a comprehensive
record of global land-change dynamics during the period 1982–2016. We show
that—contrary to the prevailing view that forest area has declined
globally—tree cover has increased by 2.24 million km2 (+7.1% relative to the
1982 level). This overall net gain is the result of a net loss in the tropics
being outweighed by a net gain in the extratropics."

\- Song, X., Hansen, M.C., Stehman, S.V. et al. Global land change from 1982
to 2016. Nature 560, 639–643 (2018).
[https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0411-9](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0411-9)

This does not take into account loss of biodiversity or effects on climate,
but the viewpoint that we are "running out of trees" is a common one. There
are actually more trees on earth than stars in the Milky Way by an order of
magnitude.

I would love to have my opinion changed on this however, so if further data
contradicts the above study (not that one single study ever proves anything),
please make me aware of it.

~~~
imnotanerd
When I started this project I also had that feeling that we were running out
of trees.

But my motivation never was to alarm people that we were running out of them,
my intention was to make actual deforestation data accessible and approachable
to the public so they could decide how big of a problem this was. I have
myself learned that I should probably worry less about it than I used to
thanks to this bot, and that's fine.

I also think you are not seeing the big picture here. 30 years is pretty much
just the minimum for the average tree to grow to a size where it can foster
other biomass. On the bigger picture:

"Forests cover 31 percent of the world’s land surface, just over 4 billion
hectares. […] This is down from the pre-industrial area of 5.9 billion
hectares."

-Earth Policy Institute. [http://www.earth-policy.org/indicators/C56/](http://www.earth-policy.org/indicators/C56/)

1.9 billion hectares down in about a century and a half.

My viewpoint now is that there is a deforestation problem in the sense that we
destroy forest dependant biomass faster than what it takes for it to recover,
but we are still in the time window where the already made harm and the future
impact of our deforestation can be reversed, from the viewpoint of Hansen et
al we seem to have reversed the negative tendency in tree cover.

~~~
dj_mc_merlin
Hey, just to clarify this was not a jab at you, I just wanted to present a
different viewpoint. Very often people fall into the habit of seeing every
environmentalist point as good and true, and anything that contradicts that is
false and harmful. A more nuanced perspective is the actual truth.

~~~
imnotanerd
I didn't take it as jab!

I actually appreciate that you put in effort to add to the discussion and I
presume you made some research to find the Hansen 1982-2016 research paper.

That is a success to me because my work has achieved it's goal, discussion
about deforestation is moving forwards! It's even more exciting that this is
coming from someone who is not a close-minded environmentalist. In a way I
agree that, despite taking care of our environment should be a priority,
doctrine-like following of mantras and lack of proper criticism is actually
harmful for any movement and individual.

------
seapunk
Hi Daniel, it's really nice project.

Any plan to build a website for more visualization in the future or maybe a
newsletter to receive the updates?

~~~
imnotanerd
Kind of.

Not exactly a project inside this project, but maybe a separate visualization
tool using the GLAD alerts API to allow people to gather the same information
the bot does, but in an easy to use website instead of having to use the
package itself inside their machines. Unfortunately I'm not much of a designer
so this could take a long time.

The newsletter idea sounds cool. Maybe even send detailed reports? There is
more data the bot knows on each request but gets ignored for simplicity of the
statuses.

However, as of now I'm more concerned about the continuity of the bot, as mLab
(where the bot database is) will be terminating their service by November.
Currently looking for a free or affordable place to deploy this app.

~~~
seapunk
> The newsletter idea sounds cool. Maybe even send detailed reports? There is
> more data the bot knows on each request but gets ignored for simplicity of
> the statuses.

Indeed a detailed report would be nice to receive.

About mLab, I think you could give a shot to the MongoDB Atlas Free Tier (M0).

------
quenix
This seems cool, but somewhat unconstructive. Feels like receiving daily
tweets about the continuous destruction of wildlife (but being able to do
nothing about it personally) is a very negative overall experience, and
doesn’t seem healthy. It is in effect receiving daily bad news which you can
do nothing about.

~~~
Santosh83
I personally know many people who are now doing whatever little they can only
because they got exposed to ongoing wildlife catastrophe through social media.
Yes, they may not make a difference on a global scale considering them in
isolation, but there are many more such people and the effects add up perhaps
to make a minor but nevertheless significant difference in the long term.

Hiding the information away only helps the exploiters to win decisively.

Yeah the data is somewhat sensationalist, but still it is not false data and
many people who would otherwise not bat an eye can sometimes be impacted into
change by sensationalist or shocking presentation of data.

~~~
smabie
I dunno, speaking personally, the world has so many problems that it's best
(for me) to not think that much about them, or be exposed to that much
information about them. Maybe this is a bad attitude, but ignorance is bliss.

If I was like Bill Gates or something, I think I would have a different
attitude. Only when information can actually inform my decisions does it
become meaningful. No matter what I hear about global deforestation, I'm not
going to do anything about it. So why even hear it in the first place? It just
serves to pollute my mind and make me feel bad.

~~~
thomasahle
> the world has so many problems that it's best (for me) to not think that
> much about them, or be exposed to that much information about them

I think a lot of people feel that way, and it's not an entirely irrational
response.

Perhaps the best solution is to choose just one or two problems to worry about
and try to help solve. Let other people worry about the others.

The "Think Globally, Acr Locally" mantra suggest it's easier to influence your
local community and government, rather than a global, hard to wrap your head
around, abstract issue.

Some people may still decide that working on global deforestation is the most
important thing to do.

------
bosswipe
Why does it only tweet about Suriname?

~~~
imnotanerd
It will make map comparisons with Suriname until this country is deforestated,
then it will move to the next country in the list.

------
blondie9x
What’s the Suriname for?

~~~
imnotanerd
Just happened to be the first country on the list.

------
zby
How can it be real-time?

~~~
imnotanerd
A little bit of marketing wording I must confess, but it is as real time as
you can get with this kind of datasets.

The API that I used for this project along the other APIs by GFW power an app
called Forest Watcher that it's pretty real-time.

------
eucryphia
So if you found a security bug in some networks software you'd just make it
public? zero validation? just Tweet it out publicly as soon as you found it?

What due diligence did you do on globalforestwatch.org?

~~~
imnotanerd
I emailed them about each and every flaw of their API that I detailed, and
some other details I didn't reveal about it.

Their developers and public relationships people are good professionals but I
can't stop feeling they are overworked.

Moreover, I detailed those flaws not as empty criticism but rather as
instances of software being problematic not because of undocumented behavior
but actually because of "undocumented design".

