The Amazon rainforest, so crucial to the Earth’s climate system, is coming under threat from cleaner air say prominent UK and Brazilian climate scientists in the journal Nature.
Science Daily: Amazon Under Threat From Cleaner Air
Report: CO2 from deforestation ‘far outstrip damage caused by planes and automobiles and factories’
Excerpt: 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. The rampant slashing and burning of tropical forests is second only to the energy sector as a source of greenhouses gases according to report published today by the Oxford-based Global Canopy Programme, an alliance of leading rainforest scientists. Figures from the GCP, summarising the latest findings from the United Nations, and building on estimates contained in the Stern Report, show deforestation accounts for up to 25 per cent of global emissions of heat-trapping gases, while transport and industry account for 14 per cent each; and aviation makes up only 3 per cent of the total. “Tropical forests are the elephant in the living room of climate change,” said Andrew Mitchell, the head of the GCP.Scientists say one days’ deforestation is equivalent to the carbon footprint of eight million people flying to New York. Reducing those catastrophic emissions can be achieved most quickly and most cheaply by halting the destruction in Brazil, Indonesia, the Congo and elsewhere.No new technology is needed, says the GCP, just the political will and a system of enforcement and incentives that makes the trees worth more to governments and individuals standing than felled. “The focus on technological fixes for the emissions of rich nations while giving no incentive to poorer nations to stop burning the standing forest means we are putting the cart before the horse,” said Mr Mitchell.
The Independent: Deforestation: The hidden cause of global warming
KEVIN Rudd’s climate change guru Ross Garnaut has used his newly attained expertise in the field to argue heritage traditions, such as a slate roof, should not apply to a sleek, modern house he wants to build in inner suburban Melbourne.
The Australian: Garnaut heavies council over roof
WATER Commissioner Elizabeth Nosworthy says installing a pool at her home is sending “the right message” to Queenslanders coping with tough water restrictions.
couriermail.com.au: Water chief defends new pool
CLIMATE change could lead to “killer cornflakes” with the most potent liver toxin ever recorded, an environmental health conference has been told.
news.com.au: Cornflakes in cereal killer warning
A $34 million solar instrument package to be built by the University of Colorado at Boulder, considered a crucial tool to help monitor global climate change, has been restored to a U.S. government satellite mission slated for launch in 2013.
The data from these instruments will help scientists differentiate between natural and human-caused climate change, said Pilewskie.
CU Team To Build $34 Million Instrument Package For U.S. Environmental Satellite
Study: With locked crust, Earth could become another Venus
HOUSTON, May 12, 2008 — A new study of possible links between climate and geophysics on Earth and similar planets finds that prolonged heating of the atmosphere can shut down plate tectonics and cause a planet’s crust to become locked in place.
EurekAlert: Hot climate could shut down plate tectonics
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
On the issue of our climate and water celebrities not practising what they preach – an interesting counter attack from http://www.samefacts.com/archives/energy_and_environment_/2008/05/greenhousegas_footprints_and_environmental_activism.php
….”allows Tierney to claim the sort of faux-populist gotcha! so beloved among glibertarians and greedhead conservatives. (The theocrat, nativist, and imperialist wings of conservatism prefer their faux-populist gotcha!s on different topics.)” …
So humans are still affecting he global climate – are we innocent of anything?
There, I just knew that turning my TV on would slow tectonic activity.
Now, if I can just keep it turned on for a few million years …
Here we go with the gonzo Amazon CO2 projections, again. The simple facts are that climax forests are in carbon equilibrium where emissions from rotting wood are matched by the sequestration of growing trees.
The removal of those forests produces a number of offsetting outcomes.
a. a large portion of the in situ carbon is moved, converted to timber and stored in houses, fence posts, and paper products which end up in longterm storage in landfills etc.
b. a large portion of the carbon is left in the ground as stumps and roots which will break down and release carbon gradually over many decades.
c. a large portion of the carbon will be windrowed and dried for a number of years until it is ready to burn.
d. part of this large portion will actually be burned and release CO2 into the atmosphere, BUT;
d.1 it will still be released in proximity to one of the most productive forest ecosystems on the planet where a significant portion will be re-absorbed by that forest,
d.2 a large part of the volume that is burned will be converted to charcoal and be incorporated in the soil as stable carbon, and make a major contribution to subsequent soil fertility, for more than 1000 years, and
d.3 a large portion of the volume that is burned is the volume that was going to rot and thereby release its carbon over the next few decades anyway.
e. the long term record reveals that the area subject to vigorous unrestrained regrowth has been more than 50% of the area that is cleared. The growth rate of this regrowing forest is much more than double the growth rate of the original forest so this smaller portion of the cleared area is absorbing more carbon in total than the original cleared forest.
f. a large portion of the area claimed to be clearing of climax forest has actually been clearing of past regrowth, some of it a number of times. In these cases the actual volume that is released is much less than the volume used in the green spiv scarenario. In fact,
g. the remaining cleared land is subject to continual regrowth of tree species which is also at rates much greater than the original forest growth. At the moment this carbon accumulates for 10 to 15 years and is then cleared for pasture maintenance. This carbon forms a pool that is continually recycled from wood to atmospheric CO2 and back again and consequently is essentially similar (albeit smaller) to the original forest carbon pool that was also part of a continuous cycle of emission and sequestration.
But it is all a long way from London, New York and Sydney so none of the eco-punters and planet pimps will ever get to see or understand the real story on the ground. In any event, they have brains that only proceed through an issue until they can find any small excuse to confirm their prejudices. And once that excuse is found, they go no further. Better a simplistic fallacy than a complex truth.
All sing – there’s a fraction too much fiction.
Any figures quoted, source – as usual not. Source sans bum.
Regrowth ? what are we clearing for… cattle & agriculture
Forestry is what % again !?
http://rainforests.mongabay.com/amazon/amazon_destruction.html
Has clearing increased of late?
http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1021-amazon.html
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0124-amazon.html
To be fair – earlier work put the regional net flux in balance varying between years as a source or a sink.
But later work puts the bounds on many of these calculations in some doubt.
http://www.whrc.org/resources/published_literature/pdf/RamankuttyetalGCB.07.pdf
Complex stuff – Mottsa’s data free certainty has to be smiled at. Wonder if he gets the right answer for the wrong reasons – wouldn’t that be funny. The usual planet pimp prose is bloody tedious and unamusing.
Without writing a lengthy tome here is some brief comments on some Indonesian rain forest.
Kalimantan (South Borneo – Indonesian side)
The rain forest of Kalimantan was / is built up on layer of peat. The soil underneath is very poor. It would not support large plant life. Kalimantan currently straddles the equator. If it was on the same latitude as say Sydney or Canberra chances are it would be a desert.
The peat has been laid down for thousands of years and the root structure of the rain forest wood – mahogany, teak, meranti was threaded through the peat and not the little amount of soil. It was possible to go into the rain forest, jump up and down and the trees would sway. Flying over Kalimantan in a small aircraft at low levels and you could see that the base of the trees were virtually immersed in a swamp like condition.
Clouds would be permanently seen around the tree canopy level like fog. Going into the forest was dark, clammy, humid and seemingly hard to breathe.
You would break into a sweat almost instantly from the humidity.
These forests with their feet in water, their heads in low level clouds had their own climate system.
When the forest is logged. The swamp drains out, the peat drys out and invariable catches fire and burns away. What’s left is a blackened area which is capable of sustaining crop – dry rice – if slash and burn and copious amounts of fertilizer are used.
Palm oil plantations are only possible if tonnes of fertilizer is used. palm oil trees leach vitamins out of the soil and fertilizer worse than many other crop trees.
The real problem is that the local climate is altered. The forest is gone and its own eco- climate is gone. What remains is a hot dry environment.
Sumatera
The governor of North Sumatera commissioned some experts from the U.S. to find out the effect of the reduction of the rain forest around the North Sumatera province. The ambient temperature in North Sumatera has risen by up to 3 degrees. The rain fall pattern in the province had altered and the paddy fields could not get the required amount of rainfall in the correct seasons. The experts came to the conclusion that the rain forest had been removed with it’s corresponding local climate system.
The governor then went on a large program of replanting trees.
I was there. I saw it.
I have no doubt that the CO2 myth is just that. A scam with dollar signs in someones eyes. However I have seen real localised climate alteration due to human activity. What the effect of clearing equatorial tropical rain forest on world wide climate patterns is, I do not know. Perhaps has an affect.
Thanks, Dopi Wan, the Mongabay stuff was pure crap because it did not even recognise that regrowth and reclearing ever takes place.
The quote from Ramankutty reinforces my point.
“Our analysis demonstrates the importance of considering land-cover dynamics following deforestation, including the fluxes from reclearing of secondary vegetation, the decay of product and slash pools, and the fluxes from regrowing forest. It also suggests that accurate carbon-flux estimates will need to consider historical land-cover changes for at least the previous 20 years. However, this result is highly sensitive to estimates of the partitioning of cleared carbon into instantaneous burning vs. long-timescale slash pools”.
Note what they say about the main author of Mongabay, Fearnside.
“These satellite- based estimates and the CCMLP study suggested that Houghton and colleagues and Fearnside (2000) have overestimated carbon emissions from land-cover change by up to a factor of two, mainly because of different estimates of the rates of tropical deforestation
(DeFries & Achard 2002; House et al., 2003)”.
It seems necessary to point out to those with a retention deficit that my earlier post was an outline of the kind of errors that are made and that description is consistent with what Ramankutty has concluded. The fact that no numbers were included does not, in any way, diminish the validity of that description.
It is significant that Dopi Wan and his Mongabay link have neglected to point out that the total area of Amazon forest is about 4.5 million km2 of which only 13% 600,000 km2 has ever been cleared.
They continually refer to the practice of slash and burn, farm and then move on, but fail to mention that forest reclaims that land soon after. The satellite data indicates that regrowth has reclaimed more than half of all land cleared leaving a net 6% of the forested area that is now non-forest.
Note also that Dopi Wan has not made any attempt at disputing the existence of the elements of amazonian forest flux that I described. All climax forests have a large pool of rotting vegetation that will produce massive “natural” emissions over subsequent decades if left untouched. The clearing of such forest merely results in a shift in classification of this emission from a “natural” source to an “anthropogenic” source with minimal net impact on total carbon balance.
The IPCC is condemned for gross professional incompetence for failing to even recognise that such shifts can even take place. To these clowns, all emissions of an anthropogenic classification are deemed to be in excess of natural sources.
Sigh. Jabba the Hut says “To these clowns, all emissions of an anthropogenic classification are deemed to be in excess of natural sources.” – well it is you silly. Don’t try the flux versus mass balance bait and switch. You may find that studies of carbon flux in the biosphere is a big topic. Do you actually think that you may have discovered this field. (Sound of tyre pump inflating an ego)
And also don’t bother with the X% has never been cleared. We can say you have never used more than 1% of your brain. It’s as relevant. Nett response is the issue.
Slash & burn – and how much is permanently converted for grazing – degrades and never comes back. Where’s your regrowth numbers for a start? Zarin at al in Front Ecol Environ 2005; 3(7): 365–369 say:
“Amazonian farmers and ranchers use fire to clear land for agriculture and pasture as part of extensive land-use
strategies that have deforested 500 000 km2 over the past 25 years. Ash from burning biomass fertilizes crops and
pastures, but declining productivity often occurs after a few years, generally leading to land abandonment and
further clearing. Subsequent forest regrowth partially offsets carbon emissions from deforestation, but is often
repeatedly cleared and burned. In the first quantitative, basin-wide assessment of the effect of repeated clearing
and burning on forest regrowth, our analysis of data from 90 stands at nine locations across the region indicates
that stands with a history of five or more fires suffer on average a greater than 50% reduction in carbon accumulation.
In the absence of management interventions, Amazonian landscapes dominated by this pronounced
legacy of fire are apt to accumulate very little carbon and will remain highly susceptible to recurrent burning.”
In: Science 28 November 2003, Vol. 302. no. 5650, pp. 1554 – 1557, Saleska,at al say in
Carbon in Amazon Forests: Unexpected Seasonal Fluxes and Disturbance-Induced Losses
that
“The net ecosystem exchange of carbon dioxide was measured by eddy covariance methods for 3 years in two old-growth forest sites near Santarém, Brazil. Carbon was lost in the wet season and gained in the dry season, which was opposite to the seasonal cycles of both tree growth and model predictions. The 3-year average carbon loss was 1.3 (confidence interval: 0.0 to 2.0) megagrams of carbon per hectare per year. Biometric observations confirmed the net loss but imply that it is a transient effect of recent disturbance superimposed on long-term balance. Given that episodic disturbances are characteristic of old-growth forests, it is likely that carbon sequestration is lower than has been inferred from recent eddy covariance studies at undisturbed sites.
Our results focus attention on the importance of respiration and disturbance for understanding the present and future C balance of Amazonian forests. The unexpected seasonality of C exchange, dominated by moisture effects on respiration, calls into question hypothesized C losses during El Niño–Southern Oscillation droughts and highlights the importance of using accurate seasonal fluxes for inverse atmospheric model studies. The observation of disturbance-induced loss implies that large-scale C balance depends critically on large-scale disturbance dynamics. Consequently, if study sites avoid recent disturbance, extrapolations to the whole basin will consistently overestimate C sequestration by Amazonian forests.”
Then there are the changes in supposedly “pristine” forest brought about by increasing atmospheric CO2.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/03/040311075116.htm
http://students.washington.edu/timbillo/readings%20for%20peru/Laurance%20et%20al.%20Nature%20Amazon%20tree%20species%20changes.pdf
How all this plays out in terms of plant species winners and losers – especially with regards to ecological issues with specialised pollinators remains to be seen.
On top of all this are the long term changes in rainfall. We know that El Nino changes the Amazon carbon balance. The lead article here
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080507133259.htm discusses the possibility of increasing Amazonian drought.
I’ll grant you that all is not known but your pretense of a case is as dubious and selective as the day is long. When you do a properly laid out referenced case with some substantiation on the numbers, areas, methods, rates and fluxes we’ll listen but not if you’re doing your normal industry apologist bluffing trick of pulling numbers out of your bum. As usual someone else does your lit review.
It is only appropriate that you provide the lit review, Dopi Wan, after all, you are the one who is paid to be here.
And after first giving us links that don’t even recognise the existence of regrowth and related flux pools, he then manages to find papers that try to down play the significance of them once the issue is raised. So you do, now, accept that there are a number of post clearing carbon flux pools, do you?
And spare us the pathetic shimmy over the fact that much of the measured anthropogenic landuse change emissions are nothing more than the re-badging of natural emissions. Such re-badging has very little impact on total emissions and the casual manner in which you dismiss this issue is symptomatic of the lack of professional standards in the entire climate industry.
It does highlight the willingness of the climate mafia to mislead both the public and the formal policy process.
So lets get back to Amazonia.
Is it reasonable to assume that some CO2 emissions in the middle of 450 million hectares of climax forest might get re-absorbed by that forest? Yes.
Is it reasonable to assume that an 87% intact forest of that scale is capable of re-absorbing a large part of the emissions from the 0.4 of 1% of its area that is cleared each year? Absolutely.
A climax rainforest may have in the order of 600m3 of wood above ground and another 300m3 below ground. And we know that the above ground fluxes can be in the order of +10m3 of growth and -10m3 of decay. So even in the extreme case where all of the 600m3 of above ground wood is burned on clearing, and no regrowth takes place, anywhere, then the 600m3 worth of equivalent CO2 could be fully re-absorbed when all the remaining forest increases growth rates by only 3m3.
But wait, the clearing of the 600m3 merely brought forward the emissions from the 600m3 of wood that was going to rot in the forest over the next 60 years. If some of that wood ended up in a house, a barn or as fence posts then it will still not rot for 40 to 60 years. And this stored volume will lower the growth rate increase needed by the rest of the forest to maintain equilibrium.
And when we consider that a regrowth stand can add above ground biomass at rates of 30m3/ha/year then it is clear that regrowth need only reclaim a third of cleared land to absorb the same volume that was absorbed annually by the cleared forest.
So for each cleared hectare, 600m3 of rotting wood has been prevented, and the 600m3 of lost accumulated annual growth is being delivered by the third of the cleared area that has been reclaimed by regrowth.
More importantly, if the regrowth portion rises by half to 50% of cleared area (as is the case)then the growth increment required of the remaining forest to restore equilibrium is halved to a modest 15% or 1.5m3/ha/year. Factor in a modest 10% timber extraction and another 10% charcoal conversion and this drops back to 9% or 0.9m3/ha/year which is well within the range of recorded growth responses to CO2 increases.
So the climate mafia can do all the shock scarenarios they like but they always come unstuck whenever their projections are compared with the known range of natural variation.
So I can see you’ve made all sorts of assumptions (or ignored) about regrowth areas and rates, uses of timber versus burning, re-burn rates, fluxes under various climate conditions, responses of old growth under disturbance, ecological effects of species change, droughts and CO2 fertilisation. Your source – pers. comm. yourself.
The literature I’ve dug up (in my personal time!) simply shows some of the difficulties, anomalies and gaps. And a few facts.
Your usual rant about corrupt science processes doesn’t wash.
My point is making glib pronouncements without decent information is pretty sus.
So can we take it that you do accept that there is a great deal more to the story than the simplistic crap on Mangabay?
So now can we pin you down on whether you accept that the area that remains as forest has a major bearing on the volume of emissions that will get re-absorbed?
And while my numbers on the actual volumes/hectare are indicative only, do you now accept that the higher growth rates of regrowth compared to climax forest has a material bearing on the carbon balance of the entire forest?
Do you contest the conclusion that the volume of CO2 that would need to be re-absorbed is well within the range of growth responses to increased CO2 found in the experimental studies?
You can never pin Creeps down fully coz we’re sneaky.
The area that remains has a major bearing on absorption – but it depends on time of year and if in drought or not whether a sink or source.
Regrowth depends on how much regrowth actually occurs. Do we know. This isn’t eucalypt woodlands.
Mongoosebay suggests the major use is for grazing and that slash and burn is burnt and reburnt.
So you don’t really know regrowth levels. You don’t know how much of this clearing went into timber or was burnt.
The region could be a source or sink and it even may vary between years. Over 50 years do we know?
And if the future holds for more drought as our lead articles suggest – much more a source !!!!
Mongoosebay is hardly a credible source. And you are misquoting.
The literature is absolutely clear on the fact that under slash and burn agriculture the land is abandoned after a few years. Abandoned to what, one might ask?
Abandoned to regrowth of course. The regrowth that they refuse to measure and quantify. The regrowth you are now claiming is not abandoned but is converted to broadscale grazing and continually reburned.
Funny, I could have sworn that the conversion to grazing was supposedly from climax forest, and on an industrial scale, not from regrowth, and not on the small scale of the shifting cultivators.
Does that mean you now accept that there is a high incidence of double counting? That the initial climax forest clearing is followed by re-clearing of regrowth?
Lets face it Luke/creepy, the amazon of the planet ponces is purely imaginary. A bit like the old Donovan song. “In the Amazon, the prophylactics prowl, in the amazon, they lay it on with a trowel”.
Well you’ve done it again. You have no substantiation for your opinions. Mott pers comm. Very very unsatisfactory. Standard performance. Big rhetorical flourish, lots of abuse and put downs, no evidence tendered. It’s all “just obvious”.
– it’s a question of the efficacy of clearing, the extent of clearing, and subsequent fires.
Zarin et al say:
“Subsequent forest regrowth partially offsets carbon emissions from deforestation, but is often
repeatedly cleared and burned. In the first quantitative, basin-wide assessment of the effect of repeated clearing
and burning on forest regrowth, our analysis of data from 90 stands at nine locations across the region indicates
that stands with a history of five or more fires suffer on average a greater than 50% reduction in carbon accumulation.
In the absence of management interventions, Amazonian landscapes dominated by this pronounced
legacy of fire are apt to accumulate very little carbon and will remain highly susceptible to recurrent burning.”
More fires than ever?
http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1021-amazon.html
Another half truth from Lord Creepo. He didn’t mention what proportion of the 90 stands actually had five or more fires, did he? And he didn’t bother to inform us the relative areas of these events, did he? This is typical anecdotal bull$hit that is left to the gullible reader to assume that it is the norm.
And you have better data do you. Nooooooooooo !!!
Until you have some specific information – and you’ve tendered none – as usual you’re making shit up.
Far from anedotal – may I suggest RTFing paper.
Here’s some further serious work:
Fire Wars !!
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16018097
Science 11 June 1999:
Vol. 284. no. 5421, pp. 1832 – 1835
Positive Feedbacks in the Fire Dynamic of Closed Canopy Tropical Forests
Mark A. Cochrane, 123* Ane Alencar, 3 Mark D. Schulze, 24 Carlos M. Souza Jr., 2 Daniel C. Nepstad, 13 Paul Lefebvre, 1 Eric A. Davidson 1
The incidence and importance of fire in the Amazon have increased substantially during the past decade, but the effects of this disturbance force are still poorly understood. The forest fire dynamics in two regions of the eastern Amazon were studied. Accidental fires have affected nearly 50 percent of the remaining forests and have caused more deforestation than has intentional clearing in recent years. Forest fires create positive feedbacks in future fire susceptibility, fuel loading, and fire intensity. Unless current land use and fire use practices are changed, fire has the potential to transform large areas of tropical forest into scrub or savanna.
Science 26 May 2000:
Vol. 288. no. 5470, pp. 1356 – 1358
Receding Forest Edges and Vanishing Reserves
Claude Gascon, G. Bruce Williamson, Gustavo A. B. da Fonseca*
Logging and road building carve up otherwise intact expanses of forest into small and isolated islands (forest fragmentation), creating a perimeter of abrupt forest edge where ecological changes take place (1). Edge effects in fragments of tropical forest are widespread and complex (1, 2). They have been treated as static phenomena, that is, as a fixed function of edge distance. This has resulted in simplistic landscape management guidelines such as the creation of buffer zones around parks and reserves (3). However, recent research (4) suggests that many tropical landscapes are increasingly experiencing conditions hostile to forest regeneration, including intrusion by fire into areas with a historically low incidence of burning. Furthermore, natural phenomena such as El Niñ;o events act synergistically to magnify the deleterious effects of human disturbance (5). This combination of factors is posing a much more serious threat to forest remnants than previously imagined because forest edges are gradually receding, diminishing the size of fragments and ultimately causing them to collapse inwards. The implications for tropical landscape planning and conservation are far-reaching.
Journal of Tropical Ecology (2002), 18: 311-325 Cambridge University Press
Fire as a large-scale edge effect in Amazonian forests
Mark A. Cochrane a1 and William F. Laurance a2 a3 c1
a1 Basic Science and Remote Sensing Initiative, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48823, USA (Email: cochrane@bsrsi.msu.edu)
a2 Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 2072, Balboa, Republic of Panamá
a3 Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project, National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA), C.P. 478, Manaus, AM 69011-970, Brazil
Amazonian forests are being rapidly cleared, and the remaining forest fragments appear unusually vulnerable to fire. This occurs because forest remnants have dry, fire-prone edges, are juxtaposed with frequently burned pastures, and are often degraded by selective logging, which increases forest desiccation and fuel loading. Here we demonstrate that in eastern Amazonia, fires are operating as a large-scale edge effect in the sense that most fires originate outside fragments and penetrate considerable distances into forest interiors. Multi-temporal analyses of satellite imagery from two frontier areas reveal that fire frequency over 12-14-y periods was substantially elevated within at least 2400 m of forest margins. Application of these data with a mathematical core-area model suggests that even large forest remnants (up to several hundred thousand ha in area) could be vulnerable to edge-related fires. The synergistic interactions of forest fragmentation, logging and human-ignited fires pose critical threats to Amazonian forests, particularly in more seasonal areas of the basin.
“the more seasonal areas of the basin”? Oh, do they mean at the edges where the forest blends into the dry woodland of the Mato Grosso?
Shock horror, the places where dryer forest meets woodland are prone to fire. Well, who would have thought of that?
Come on Mottsa – you’re running on empty now. Desperation is setting in. Your definitive source of knowledge on regrowth and fire is …. ?
“Amazonian forests are being rapidly cleared, and the remaining forest fragments appear unusually vulnerable to fire”? Would this “remaining forest fragment” be the 87% that has never been cleared?
Nice try with the call for a “definitive source of knowledge on regrowth”, Lord Creepo. But it is quite clear to readers that the knowledge on regrowth is far from complete, and therefore far from definitive. You have, however, tried on a number of occasions to present partial and fragmentary facts as some sort of definitive view of what is taking place there.
No it would not – look at some of the patterns of clearing…
Ahem – it is YOU that presents the pseudo-definitive view (as usual) – to try and turn this around onto me is laughable.
Oh, so it wasn’t you who posted the links to Mongabay and Fearnside’s overestimates of carbon emissions from land-cover change by up to a factor of two? Blame it on the dingo.
How can they be over-estimates when you don’t have any information yourself. When do you ever post anything that’s not pulled out of thin air. Then have a big rave like it’s all true. You’re full of it. Just an industry apologist and whinger.
It must get get terribly frustrating for you, Lord Creepo. You posted a set of links to distinctly one-eyed material that supported the claims in the initial post. I responded by pointing out a number of in principle errors and omissions in those links that were subsequently confirmed by material you had actually provided.
I suppose that is the problem that you and your mates have with the delivery of facts to a policy process. Facts are neutral. The damned things can favour either side. Better stick to bull$hit and spin, at least you know they will always be “loyal”.