
Are forest fires as bad as they seem? - elorant
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-49515462
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sebastianconcpt
_Although it is the highest number of fires (for the year to 27 August) for
almost a decade, it is actually lower than for most years in the period 2002
to 2010.

There is a similar pattern for other areas of Brazilian forestry that are not
part of the Amazon basin.

Source: The National Institute for Space Research (Inpe)

If we look at satellite images for the overall area of burnt forest in
Brazil's Amazon region each year, again we see very high levels in the early
2000s.

For 2019, we have data up to the end of August, and the overall area burnt for
those eight months is 45,000 sq km. This has already surpassed all the area
burnt in 2018, but appears unlikely to reach the peaks seen in the previous
decade._

~~~
gleglegle
Just because the bleeding is less worse than it was in the early 2000s doesn’t
mean the bleeding is good.

~~~
buboard
woops. fires are also essential for the renewal of the ecosystem. Of course,
not the ones started purposefully

~~~
pvaldes
It depends on the type of ecosystem

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saagarjha
Yes, if people are causing them so they can clear land. The problem with
forest fires is not the fires themselves but the fact that if you go out and
cause a fire without knowing how to set up a controlled burn you are almost
certainly doing something bad. Not sure why this article even tries to argue
otherwise.

~~~
chongli
To play the devil's advocate, look at some species of trees such as eucalyptus
[1]. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that these (and probably other)
trees have evolved to include forest fires as a key part of their lifecycle.
When there is a huge buildup of fuel in a forest, talking about who started a
fire or what their motivation was is not seeing the forest for the trees.

The spark that starts a forest fire is only a proximate [2] cause. The
ultimate cause is that these trees evolved to be highly flammable.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus#Adaptation_to_fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus#Adaptation_to_fire)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causation)

~~~
cortesoft
I know forest fires are essential to California forests. Redwoods, for
example, have seeds that wait to be burned before they will sprout. The large
redwoods are big enough to survive most fires.

However, the issue has been that we suppress forest fires for years, leading
to a buildup of fuel, leading to fires that are so big that they destroy the
trees that normally survive them.

California has changed the way it deals with forest fires to try to prevent
this... they don't try to stop ALL fires now.

~~~
robterrell
And, California plans controlled burns.

~~~
j_b_s
better than planned uncontrolled burns

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thinkmassive
Interesting article, also from BBC, that explains how suppressing wildfires
can actually make them worse [http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160722-why-we-
should-let-ra...](http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160722-why-we-should-let-
raging-wildfires-burn)

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paulsutter
Since Europe and the US have committed to total reforestation, it’s only
natural to expect Brazil to.... Oh wait a minute

Seriously, everyone up in arms, let’s put together funds and lease those lands
to protect them. I’d contribute money myself. Since avoiding the damage is
more valuable that their commercial activities we should be able to outbid
them... right?

Or are we saying Brazil should bear the costs themselves?

~~~
parsimo2010
I have some issue with the idea of buying/leasing land to protect the
environment. It's a noble idea, but I don't think it will work in the long
term. Most likely, you won't be able to outbid private companies- at least not
for any useful portion of the land. Their usage _makes_ money, while your idea
_takes_ money. For your idea to win you would need a lot more rich
environmentalists than currently exist. I think a better idea would be to
enact reasonable laws that protect the environment- the money that you would
have spent buying land could be used to elect non-corrupt politicians.

There is a similar effort in Colorado to buy up land and pay off farmers to
prevent them from using too much of the Colorado River so that way downstream
states like California can have some. It's created with good intentions, but I
think that it can't work in the long term- all it takes is a publicly
accessible portion of the river to get overdrawn, or a stubborn farmer to
refuse to sell and instead start piping his access of the river to other
farmers, and then the idea fails. It's more sustainable to have legally
binding usage agreements created by the states that can be enforced with the
police and jail time- you just need to motivate the politicians to get off
their butts and create the agreements.

~~~
paulsutter
Yes. My actual point is that people like to complain but want the costs borne
by others.

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antsoul
It's written in a way to make you feel there's no problem.

The total land burned over the years accumulate. We may have a constant speed
to burn all the forests left, but it's a deadly speed.

~~~
chr1
Usually it doesn't accumulate as new trees grow in the place of burned trees.

~~~
gleglegle
No. The areas burned in the Amazon are replaced by grazing and farming fields,
which are vastly less effective at locking in carbon. They’re also not a
replacement for lost ecosystems.

~~~
alacombe
45000 sq.km is about 10% of the size of France, there is no way _all_ that
land become grazing & fields overnight.

~~~
wahern
I read a long-form article recently that explained that when Brazilians slash
& burn the forest they'll typically put some cattle on the land simply as a
way to lay claim to the land, whether or not they're cattle ranchers, and
whether or not they even intend to make use of the land immediately.

This happens even if the person might have had a legitimate claim to the
property. That is, they may slash & burn land and put cattle on it because
it's simpler as a practical matter than dealing with the bureaucratic
formalities of land title in Brazil. If there are cattle both officials and
others will normally recognize the claim and leave you alone.

The burden of land title transfer formalities are a problem all across Latin
America. When it comes to property law, Continental European Civil Law doesn't
work well for developing countries generally, and in particular for securing
property rights of the poor. Many scholars have argued that Latin American
countries would do better with Common Law-style property law. Doing so in
Brazil might help reduce the pressure on the rain forest, at least a little
bit.

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liability
Maybe it depends on the context of the seemer in question. I can't pretend to
unravel the matter of their ecological impact; it seems to me that question
has too much nuance for a casual observer of the literature to unravel.

However from the perspective of actually being near these things, I can say
for sure that they're worse than I anticipated. The smoke is far more
unpleasant than I anticipated. The fires also burn hotter and faster than I
expected. Before having some personal experience with forest fires I thought
that paved roads (certainly at least highways) would be effective fire breaks
and that motorists would be largely unimpacted by a fire on the side of the
road, but I now know these fires to be disturbingly powerful. They can stall
out your car and roast you so hard you turn into a charred skeleton.

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drallison
Massive forest fires dump large quantities of CO2 and particulates into the
atmosphere. That is bad in the context of global warming where we (that is, we
humans) have a crisis. Many ecosystems may require forest fires to be healthy,
but the available "carbon credits" seem to have been stolen by those who use
fossil fuels to generate energy. Is there anyone out there who can the numbers
to reason about the positive and negative impacts of forest fires in today's
context.

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facorreia
In many (most?) cases, when they set fire, the forest is already gone. First
they sell the trees, and once they're removed, they use fire to clear up the
area.

Although some times it is used when trees are to massive for machines.

[https://beta.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/why-
brazi...](https://beta.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/why-brazilian-
farmers-are-burning-the-rainforest--and-why-its-difficult-for-bolsonaro-to-
stop-
them/2019/09/05/3be5fb92-ca72-11e9-9615-8f1a32962e04_story.html?outputType=amp)

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carapace
So... things have been bad for at least a decade or two but we have only just
started to notice.

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Railsify
If forest fires and volcanoes were the primary sources of carbon emissions our
planet had to deal with then no, they would not be any concern but rather part
of the natural weather cycles. Combined with human generated emissions they
are bad.

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jrmg
_data from the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (Inpe)_

Should I be suspicious? (Serious question, I’d _hope_ that this was a body
allowed to produce independent science- backed information).

~~~
facorreia
The director was recently and famously fired for publishing accurate data (as
it is his mandate).

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/08/03/amer...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/08/03/americas/brazil-
space-institute-director-fired-amazon-deforestation-intl/index.html)

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coding123
I bought some beef from Trader Joe's a few years ago, not thinking much of it
- probably the first time I bought raw meet from them. Cooked some burgers...
With my usual onion mix, absolutely horrid flavor threw them away. Turned the
package over, sourced in Brazil. Holy hell Trader Joe's.

~~~
DataWorker
If you you’re used to all American beef, nothing else will satisfy.

~~~
coding123
My post was about Brazilian beef specifically because it is raised on ex-
Amazon forest land. Probably should have said that, but I figured people would
get it.

