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NASA Tool Shows Where Forest Is Being Cut Down
terrancem writes "A new tool developed by NASA and other researchers shows where forest is being chopped down on a quarterly basis. The global forest disturbance alert system (GloF-DAS) is based on comparison of MODIS global vegetation index images at the exact same time period each year in consecutive years. GloF-DAS could help users detect deforestation shortly after it occurs, offering the potential to take measures to investigate clearing before it expands."
I kept reading it as GLaDOS instead of GloF-DAS.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration^H^H^H^H^H
National Assorted Stuff Agency
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
How about showing where forests are replanted? In North Ameria, more than 2 billion trees are planted each year and the total forest coverage of the continent has increased considerably over the past century.
Actually most of what is replanted is what people intend to cut as soon as possible. Here in Maine the moment trees reach a marketable size they are cut. I had a real estate agent refer to 30 year old trees as old growth. The forests used to extend from coast to coast except for the great plains and the deserts. A small percentage remains even with the replanting. Trees are pretty critical to the environment. They're a major source of oxygen, plankton in the oceans are the number one source. They are also one of the bigger carbon sinks so when trees are cut down they stop collecting and any parts that are burned or allowed to rot release the carbon. You talk about the last century but the largest reduction in forest coverage has happened in the last century. Even in the states replanting was rare until the last 50 years and even now most that are planted are earmarked for cutting as I said. Old growth are generally forests that have never been cut but that's probably less than 1% believe it or not. These days mature trees are called old growth but even that is misleading because a tree that is 30 to 50 years old and is 35 to 50 foot tall isn't old growth when the same species reaches 80+ feet and a 150 years old. A number of species reach a 100 to 200 foot tall, even White Oaks reach a 100', but trees of that size which used to be common are now rare. We can't keep leveling forests and burning fossil fuels without seeing a backlash. It's important to keep track of losses and gains.
Actually, it would be quite useful. I have a small house in an Eastern European country, which happens to be in an area where a EU-funded biofuel power plant is in operation. It took us (a small group of volunteers) nearly two years to notice and confirm that "biofuel" meant wood that is cut from a nearby forest and then burned in the plant.
Took us that long to notice, because the forest is quite large, the cutting operation was carried out as routine forest maintenance (or whatever you call the regular cutting down of fallen and broken trees in English) and was started well inside the forest - a remote area that is hard to access anyway. In the end, the late discovery of the operation (and a host of other, political issues) made it impossible to save much. Had we found out about it earlier, the outcome would have been different.
There seems to be this hypothesis going around that the environment is like a fragile house of cards, and disrupting a single part of it could cause the whole thing to collapse.
Some people think that, true. But that's not the only argument for not killing everything you see.
People who live and work in nature (rednecks, as you call them) know that the environment is damn near unstoppable (even annoyingly so at times).
That sentence doesn't really make any sense. "The environment" is unstoppable? So apparently is the idiocy of your comment. That doesn't fucking mean anything. Individual species are "stopped" all the time.
Certainly large scale destruction is possible, and would cause hardship to the earth's human populations
Yes, and large-scale deforestation causes hardship to the earth's human population (we're all in this together) so what the fuck are you bitching about? You just like bitching about them damn vironmentalists with all their concerns?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Monocultures are not good --- and not as robust as the mix that was there before. There will be fewer animals living in a forest that is constantly disturbed.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.