
Amazon’s carbon uptake declines as trees die faster - alexcasalboni
http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/research/title_442151_en.html
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monort
I thought rainforest is carbon neutral. Every tree is oxidized back to carbon
dioxide after death. How can it absorb more carbon, than release? What is the
sink?

~~~
rosser
Yes, trees die and immediately sublimate.

No, it turns out, decay is a long-term process, and much (most, even) of the
carbon is taken up by the organisms that feed on that decay.

~~~
monort
So, what happens when that organisms die? Carbon should be stored somewhere
without contact with oxygen, for forest to be carbon absorber.

~~~
rosser
_So, what happens when that organisms die?_

Another organism feeds on its decay? Lather, rinse, repeat.

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ForHackernews
So we're pretty much f'ed, right? [http://dark-mountain.net/](http://dark-
mountain.net/)

~~~
nazgulnarsil
Every single doom and gloom "unsustainable" claim I have looked into to date
has been bunk.

~~~
zachrose
Wald's unique insight was that the holes from flak and bullets on the bombers
that did return represented the areas where they were able to take damage. The
data showed that there were similar patches on each returning bomber where
there was no damage from enemy fire, leading Wald to conclude that these
patches were the weak spots that led to the loss of a plane if hit, and that
must be reinforced.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Wald](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Wald)

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jkot
Is not amazon deforested to make place for biofuel plantations?

~~~
rosser
Actually, much of the land in Brazil that's being used for biofuels was
previously deforested for logging and cattle. Of the remainder, yes, some of
it is biofuels, but the vast majority is simply logging, with agriculture
(both crops and livestock) a distant second.

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ZenoArrow
You know, we could stop this nonsense in less than a year if we wanted to.

Do you know why we won't? Of course you do. You know the answers just as well
as I do.

Firstly, you have to understand the role of the human ego. Some people like
playing the revolutionary role, but many people don't. People who want
revolution think the answer is to get other people to take up their cause, to
think like they think, become committed to a just world.

Can you not see why it's ineffective? Can not see that all you end up doing is
preaching to the converted?

If you want an fast, effective environmental revolution, you downplay the
rhetoric. You make it mundane. You make it so people can join in without
needing to act or think in a set way. You stop trying to fix everything all at
once and you focus your efforts on breaking down the problems systematically.

As an example, think about how the conversations surrounding fossil fuel usage
have evolved. At first the main argument was about global warming/climate
change, how we must change to save the planet. It helped build awareness,
debate, column inches in newspapers, etc... but the arguments were too easily
swayed by climate change deniers, who could cherry pick various statistics in
order to further their case. However, luckily we found a better argument...
peak oil.

Peak oil is a simple concept to explain. We're using crude oil at a much
faster rate than it's being produced, and there will come a tipping point
after which we will have no choice to use less oil, as it'll be harder to come
by and more expensive. The concept is simple, it stands up logically, you
don't need to follow the latest developments in order to appreciate its
validity, all positive points. But the most positive point at all, there's no
cultural baggage that comes along with it. There's no lifestyle expectations
that come from taking it to heart. It's a less emotionally stimulating idea,
and it's all the more effective for it.

So let's look at this Amazon carbon capacity issue. Let's look at what works.
Easy first focus, deforestation. People are cutting down trees in the Amazon
rainforest in order to make a living. So you focus on giving those people
other options to make a living, options that take away the need to cut down
rainforest trees. Is it as cathartic as shouting in the streets about saving
the rainforest? No. Is it more effective? You know the answer.

~~~
meric
The world's environmental problems is ultimately a single over-consumption
problem.

We consume too much:

* fossil fuels

* trees

* fish

* food & fertiliser & antibiotics

It'll be difficult to convince others to spend less. We're currently taxed on
how much we extract the earth's resources for other's use. I think to solve
the consumption problem this is the wrong way to go. It would align incentives
more to tax consumption instead. This will better encourage people to not
spend.

Of course this goes against what the ECB and the Federal reserve's objective,
to increase GDP and thus, consumption, reducing our forests, increasing our
CO2 output, and destroying our fisheries.

The world's capital and political system is aligned the wrong way around in
creating a sustainable system to manage humankind's allocation of production
and consumption. I think it will be too difficult to change the world, and the
only thing I can do is to encourage my own frugality.

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EGreg
I am actually surprised that ecosystems on Earth somehow are in an
equilibrium, with plants converting as much carbon back into oxygen as animals
convert back, on a global scale.

I mean, how does evolution explain that? We once had a near exinction for
anaerobic bacteria, because of all the oxygen they produced, at least that's
the theory. But the feedback mechanism is through such a global thing (amount
of CO2 in the atmosphere) that it is a wonder to me how the populations don't
just enter a tragedy of the commons.

~~~
nitrogen
I don't think it's right to say that Earth is in "equilibrium"; it's always
changing, with or without us (though it's changing faster with us).

 _But the feedback mechanism is through such a global thing (amount of CO2 in
the atmosphere) that it is a wonder to me how the populations don 't just
enter a tragedy of the commons._

If oxygen-using species generate more carbon dioxide, plants grow better,
producing more oxygen. No tragedy of the commons here once the feedback is in
place. We're also talking about geological time scales.

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nirmel
Is it possible to create a man-made process to convert carbon into oxygen? Do
we need to rely on plants?

~~~
themgt
It requires energy - plants use photosynthesis to harness sunlight, and then
use the carbon to build more of themselves, a great positive feedback loop. We
have no current technology that has anywhere near the ability to be as net-
carbon negative as a plant

Now, if we had something like insanely-cheap fusion power, this would probably
be a solvable problem. Otherwise I think some serious advances in nanotech
would be required - you're talking about needing to pull 32.3 billion metric
tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere per year just to offset our current
emissions, much less pull the atmospheric ppm down from the dangerously high
(and likely unstable) spot it's already at.

tl;dr the problem isn't getting carbon out of the atmosphere, the problem is
being net-carbon for the entire process lifecycle while doing it

~~~
codecamper
I'm about 40. Do you realize that people have been heralding nanotechnology as
the solution to all these problems since I was 17? Same goes for fusion. I
remember reading in Scientific American that fusion was just a few years off.
that was over 20 years ago.

~~~
jessaustin
They keep fusion in the news as marketing for the uneconomical nuclear
_fission_ power that we're actually forced to use. "Any day now, we won't be
producing all this noxious waste!"

~~~
Ygg2
I'm sorry, but what noxious waste? You mean coal, right?

~~~
crpatino
He meant the radioactive waste from nuclear fission (with an I) plants. If I
picked up the argument correctly, fusion was never meant to work, it was just
a smoke screen so that people would not look too closely at what the nuclear
industry was actually doing.

I don't share that opinion, though I think nuclear fusion power production -
at least in the scales that would matter for the project of human civilization
- turned out to be much more harder to achieve than what anyone had expected
50 years ago; and that some hard questions about the practical feasibility of
that option went unasked for far too long. Out of normal human nature, of
course. No need to cry conspiracy!

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jeff4e
algae to the rescue!

~~~
primroot
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140804-harmf...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140804-harmful-
algal-bloom-lake-erie-climate-change-science/)

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jessaustin
If a carbon-credit system ever gets off the ground, will Brazil have to buy
credits from the USA with its steadily-growing forest cover?

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codecamper
don't worry, i'm sure that we'll be able to just put it all back together
again.

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imjk
One more reason to hate Jeff Bezos! Amazon's doing nothing to stop global
warming (I'm kidding of course).

~~~
sp332
They must be sequestering a lot of carbon in all those cardboard boxes :)

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extinxt
Oh well. We're screwed. It was nice while it lasted.

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yupyupyup1
It's hard to see when there is so much money in the way.

