Slashdot Mirror
The World Lost an Oklahoma-Sized Area of Forest In 2013, Satellite Data Show
merbs writes Oklahoma spans an area in the American South that stretches across almost 70,000 square miles. That's almost exactly the same area of global forest cover that was lost in a single year. High resolution maps from Global Forest Watch, tapping new data from a partnership between the University of Maryland and Google, show that 18 million hectares (69,500 square miles) of tree cover were lost from wildfires, deforestation, and development the year before last. The maps were created by synthesizing 400,000 satellite images collected by NASA's Landsat mission.
All of those losses of forest are very different:
* After wildfires, trees naturally re-grow.
* Some deforestation is replaced with new trees, but not all.
* After development, trees are usually planted - sometimes where there used to be no trees. What is the net gain/loss of trees across ALL development, not just development taking place in a forest...
To say nothing of; what is the natural level of variation in forest year to year? From wildfires alone you would think there would be a substantial amount.
Pretty much any time nowadays someone wants you to panic, you should look very closely at the message they are trying to sell you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Do you want global warming?
This is how you get global warming.
Not what kind of lightbulbs you use. Not what kind of car you drive.
We've paved over Europe, North America, and Asia.
And we wonder why shit's getting hotter.
What the fuck sort of unit is an Oklahoma? Or a square mile?
An Australian-led analysis of satellite data has found the amount of carbon sequestered in plants has risen by almost four billion tonnes since 2003, reflecting a surge in the biomass of global flora — possibly the first such increase since the Industrial Revolution..........
http://www.weeklytimesnow.com....
I don't understand how you can label Canada as losing all that forestation without mentioning MPB and other outbreaks which are on the rise.
Do they not realize that many of those forest fires wouldn't have happened outbreaks were less severe? This is ignoring the wildfire suppression that happened in the first place which contributed to the destruction being seen in the last few years.
Interesting to think that suppressing wildfires might actually contribute to climate change.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Oklahoma was a tall grass prairie 150 years ago, with very few trees. Now there is considerable forestation. Much of this is due to human activity (for example, tree seeds being spread through cattle poop when being driven to market). Should we cut them all down and plant grass?
So is this the new metric of large square footage, the way Libraries of Congress have become?
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
RTFA:
"The World Resource Institute, which coordinates Global Forest Watch, notes that the loss is both of the permanent, human-driven varietyâ"razing for agriculture and developmentâ"and the cyclical; from fires, logging, harvesting, and natural tree death. In the case of the latter, forests can take decades to be restored. In the former, they are gone for good"
According to TFA, most of the loss was to natural wildfires, especially in Canada and Russia. But TFA doesn't say what a "normal" amount of wildfires is, and whether 2013 had more or less than normal, or even whether the total amount of deforestation is going up, or down. Factoids should have context. This a a good example of bad journalism.
I live near some of this area. There has been no fire or logging in the area and yet it is marked pink.
I'm also seeing a lot of areas that are pink that don't seem very likely to be involved in logging or forest fires. I mean, look at rural alaska.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
After wildfires, trees naturally re-grow.
They will eventually, but in the amount of time it takes for them to regrow, drastic environmental impacts may happen which destroy their habitat and make it no longer a fit for that particular plant. A simple example would be mountain flooding after a wildfire. When conifers burn, they will leave a sheet of wax on top of the dirt. When snow runoff season begins (or there are heavy rains, as seen in Colorado in 2013) the ground is not as good at sponging up the moisture and releasing it slowly down-river over the course of the season. Instead it beads off the surface and heads straight to the bottom, causing runoff to be more violent and increasing the risk of flash-flood events.
With those increased events, the habitat can be altered dramatically, possibly to the point where the trees that loved living there no longer find it suitable. Willows, dogwoods, cottonwoods, etc will all suffer as they are plants that would have increased risk (since they like living right next to the river). To compound the issue, there might be other plants that are now able to grow in areas where they couldn't before. The result of that is increased monoculture of forest species, which of course leads to increased risk of disease.
Can you begin to see the feedback loop? Increased disease, increased fire risk, increased flood risk, increased environment destruction, increased monoculture, and repeat.
The problem with wildfires now is that too many years of fire suppression has led to these situations where instead of smaller fires burning and replenishing areas periodically, we have massive fires that destroy massive areas and make it more difficult, if not impossible, for the area to recover.
Some deforestation is replaced with new trees, but not all.
I'm not sure I understand their definition of "deforestation". Is that only man-made, or does it include the work of insects, blight, and other maladies that wipe out huge swaths of forest?
Pretty much any time nowadays someone wants you to panic
Do you think that might be related to the increasing number of things that are totally fucked on our planet? I totally understand that hyperbole and sensationalism sell and that we are fed a steady diet of both, but don't throw the baby out of a moving car with a glass of water ... or whatever that saying is.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
But what about next year? Maybe part of Arizona?
All of those losses of forest are very different:
* After wildfires, trees naturally re-grow.
* Some deforestation is replaced with new trees, but not all.
* After development, trees are usually planted - sometimes where there used to be no trees. What is the net gain/loss of trees across ALL development, not just development taking place in a forest...
To say nothing of; what is the natural level of variation in forest year to year? From wildfires alone you would think there would be a substantial amount.
Pretty much any time nowadays someone wants you to panic, you should look very closely at the message they are trying to sell you.
typical neo-con trying to justify destroying the environment.
I thought it was gong to be the best article ever when i skimmed the title: "The World Lost.... Oklahoma.... Satellite Data Show"
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
They will eventually, but in the amount of time it takes for them to regrow, drastic environmental impacts may happen which destroy their habitat
Forests are very optimized to handle fires, because fire is a natural occurrence that forests must deal with. Over time, some forests even require fire to thrive (like bristlecone pines which use the heat from fires to activate seeds in cones).
The main problem with fires is if there has (ironically) been too much prevention, then there is a lot of dead undergrowth and the fire burns hotter than normal.
So, again, which is it? Were these fires that have been monitored normal forest fires, that the landscape will deal with? Or were they more harmful for some reason?
Can you begin to see the feedback loop?
Again, the feedback loop is part of a natural process.
I'm not sure I understand their definition of "deforestation"
Great question also. Does it include pines killed from pine beetles for example?
Do you think that might be related to the increasing number of things that are totally fucked on our planet?
Things are always changing an environmentally we (meaning the Earth) are a LOT better off now than we were back in the 60s/70s for example. Especially when the Soviets were in their heyday they were absolutely a massive force for destruction we probably will not see the like of again. The stuff going on these days is really pretty minimal in comparison, which is why some eco-groups try to drum up fear, because they care more about maintaining funding than they do the environment.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I mean with 7 billion people on the planet, isn't it inevitable that you would have less plants on the planet. I don't know but that seems kind of obvious. The only way to stop that would be to kill massive amounts of people. Since the black and brown peoples are making babies, whereas crackers and yellow, and red people aren't making them, it would be natural to start killing blacks and browns, but that would be politically incorrect. You can kill all the crackers you want, but you kill one nigger and all Sharpton freaks out. Besides killing crackers will not really affect things because they are pretty much dying out on their own making plant food for the green things. Of course you could invest in some kind of off world colonization project, but that would require science, and thinking. That would prevent having to kill people on such a massive scale, but you can't do that because we all know science and thinking is kind of gay. I guess the planet is just fucked.
Won't a planet covered in windmills, and PV cells affect wind patterns and ground heating, and hence affect global climate?
Why is it racist to use the nigger word, but N's can use the Bitch word all the fucking time. Just kidding I hate bitches even more that I hate niggers. Actually I don't really even hate niggers. I save all my hatred for the bitches.
Hmm. Forest? Forest == Tree. Tree == Tree hugger. Tree hugger == hippie. Hippie == those fucking fucks I'm supposed to hate.
Fucking libtards.
The losses of forests must be due to some natural variation in the solar cycles and phases of the moon, i.e., it is good for humanity and good for the Free Market.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
...notes that the loss is both of the permanent, human-driven varietyÃ"razing for agriculture and developmentÃ"and the cyclical; from fires, logging, harvesting, and natural tree death.
So yes, I did read that, which it was exactly what led me to wonder what the breakout was of each of those things. If it's primarily natural cyclical loss that will be restored why should I freak out again?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why is it that your reaction, SuperKendall, is knee jerk "it must be okay"?
I didn't say it was OK, I said "Is it OK?" Because they didn't give us enough information to know; they just want us to panic. Why is it that you seem to think panicking is the most appropriate response to anything?
I myself in fact do more for the environment than you probably ever will. I do trail cleanups, plant trees, and generally try to help the environment in whatever ways I can, in person and through donations. I'll bet all YOU ever do is donate money to groups who "help the environment" by going to dinner with politicians and defacing ancient monuments. I know one of us is actually doing something...
It's my understanding of the environment and the role fire plays in a healthy forest ecosystem that leads me to question what is really being said. An understanding you seem to utterly lack.
If you really want to help the environment, educate yourself.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That'll solve the problem, and really it would be an improvement for the state.
Green would be OK, however "burnt orange makes me puke".
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
Outlaw camp fires.
Anyone found making a camp fire gets jail time.
Because most forest fire are caused by idiots, not the sun or other "natural" methods.
Because there is clearly a high level and consistent level of loss each and every year as is quite clear from the graphs.
Oh wow a graph showing a WHOLE DECADE. Of only loss, not amounts restored through regrowth... it's pretty easy to demonstrate a negative when you take away all positive parts of an equation.
If these are mostly natural forest fires (the real question at hand that all you zealots seem uninteresting in answering) the area will re-grow just fine, and in fact there will be a new rush of growth from the space opened up for undergrowth to take over for a while while new trees mature. Which in fact would sequester more carbon than old-growth forest would...
Is it even possible for you to learn anything? It would not appear so. Now THAT is sad.
Like the GW deniers do...
Since you have revealed yourself a willfully mindless cultist and thus not able to deal with reason, I'll just back away slowly and let you have the last word, so that your religious sensibilities can be satisfied. All fear the great noodlly appendages that magically destroy forest without end! In fact all the forests died over FOURTY YEARS AGO, and forest you see on the news now are all from a single sound stage in Nevada!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Oklahoma is BIG place for a nematode.
Oklahoma is small place on EARTH.
Ha ha
FU
fuck the state. they're all just stupid birther's.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
If there's more than one, I suspect I might know what happened.
This resource is truly renewable, what's the problem?
Are we talking metric Oklahoma's or should I be converting this into American football fields?
To be honest here in Canada we need massive wildfires to clean up the pine beetle problem. The wood can be used, usually in chipboard or paper products as long as the tree isn't fully rotten among other problems. When I was driving out through western canada a couple of years back it was a serious problem, and if you want to see what happens when a wildfire plus pine beetle infestation can do to an area, look at the slave lake fire. The fire was deliberately set, but the forest in the area is infested with pine beetles which have caused massive die offs with the trees, basically making it a perfect situation.
Anyway, once a place is burned out, harvested, and so on we plant new trees there anyway. The forestry industry here is amazingly good at creating an entire harvest, burn, plant cycle. Not forgetting that we have laws on the books that companies that harvest(anything whether it be trees, oil, oilsands, coal, etc) have to by law set aside funds for restoration. The government oversees the funds to ensure that enough is being put aside.
Om, nomnomnom...
Dumb Americans. Sensible people measure land area in Wales. How many Wales are there to an Oklahoma?
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Pretty much any time nowadays someone wants you to panic, you should look very closely at the message they are trying to sell you.
I just see some people stating some things they've measured. Not sure why you feel you should panic.
FoxNews says it can be found on Hillary's email server.
you dumbasses are reproducing faster than the planet you live on can support you.
in fact, you've long since past the population count that your planet can support.
you're now on a rapid global resource munching collapse that is unstoppable because
both collectively and individually you will not stop consuming.
therefore all that is in the future for you, your children, and so on down the years
is a vast global wasteland of famine, war, and pestilence.
STUPID HUMANS.
"Oklahoma-size" means northing ouside the US.
I read TFA, and looked as some of the links. I have no idea what the overall situation is, and these sites certainly do not provide the information. Just as an example, I found various maps that document forest losses. Areas of the world where forest cover is increasing (most of Europe, for example) are simply shown as "no losses". In other words, they show forests that were cut down, or that burned, but they do not show newly forested areas, or forests that have recovered from burning.
With this kid of biased data, we have no idea what the overall global balance is.
Finding unbiased data turns out to be really difficult, at least, after 20 minutes or so I hadn't found anything I trusted. There were some national agencies where you could download raw data. But every organization that has put data together into some sort of overview is an organization that has a political point to make. Greenpeace always cooks the numbers to make their point. The same for logging industry sites, only they cook the numbers in the opposite direction.
The best site I found is from the World Bank, but it only goes through 2012, and doesn't provide much detail. According to the summary graph, 31.0% of the total land area of the planet was covered by forest in 2010, 30.9% in 2011, and then back up to 31.0% in 2012. Another presumably neutral site is from the UN, but their data only goes through 2010.
Does anyone have a better source that provides halfway objective information on this stuff?
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Citation needed.
"The stuff going on these days" include global warming and peak oil. They're far from being "pretty minimal", and I'd even argue that mankind never faced bigger challenges.
To say nothing of; what is the natural level of variation in forest year to year? From wildfires alone you would think there would be a substantial amount.
Some of the first laws on the books in California were prohibition of setting fires, for use against natives. They set controlled burns every year which kept the understory clear and the forests healthy. But other natives set fires to clear land for Bison. The landscape of pre-America America was very much deliberately created by peoples who had, after all, some 20,000 years to transform the continent.
Pretty much any time nowadays someone wants you to panic, you should look very closely at the message they are trying to sell you.
And any time someone wants to hand-wave away economic impact, same thing.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Of course they are the question about the loss is whether there is habitat loss or not.
The issue here is the increasing intensity of wildfires and bushfires as global temperatures rise and forests dry out.
Fire is generally a welcome component of the functioning of some types of forests, like bushland, burning off old growth and releasing minerals back into the soil, burning seed casings for new growth with older trees surviving and growing back in about 2-5 years. In other type of forests, like rainforest, fire is not a component. Alpine forests also behave differently.
From my understanding the measurement is done with a metal square placed on the subject forest floor and the leaf letter from the trees containing sticks, seeds and leaves, which provides habitat for bugs and the creatures that eat them, is measured. In bushland it's used to figure out how much fuel will be burnt and topsoil remaining afterwards. In rainforest, the depth of the leaf litter and the water content. In alpine environments seeds and seedlings.
So while the commonly held notion is that, yes the forest regrows, the underlying and important thing to grasp is how long does it take to regrow to provide habitat and if the forest floor was destroyed.
The things that have been occuring is that bushland is burning with greater ferocity which has been destroying the older trees and burning the seed and casing, in rainforest lower water content and the fires burning to a much deeper level of the forest floor exposing the roots of very large trees so the rainforest slowly dies. In alpine regions, again the fires are more intense, burning seeds so there is a much lower density of seedlings growing over the previous measurements after fires, In alpine forests, the seedlings are becoming rarer.
All these things are signs of the natural processes being impacted enough so that they don't recover and that habitat is lost, so the natural forests have a persistant and permanent loss that is not restored.
The reason why that is concerning is because forests aren't growing back after natural events.
However the habitat is gone and all the crreatures that live there are also dead with survivors putting pressure on other habitat. Also some deforestation, for cash crops, is counted as forest even when the forest floor and the habitat it supported is still gone. So there is less habitat *available*
This is what leads to extinction of species, such as Orangutag whose habitat is destroyed for palm plantations.
Again, habitat destroyed because the trees are where the animals and insects live. If you have ever seen 2 D10 dozers clear felling land with a hundred metres of ship anchor chain between them, tearing trees down. The tress are chipped and the forest floor is bulldozed into a pile then, usually, burnt.
You see the habitat that was there is now dead and it isn't coming back.
Actually the question is what percentage of that loss is permanent habitat loss. Developments are already lost habitat. Tree Canopy loss is the first sign of a permanent loss of habitat, which indicates that the percentage of habitat permantly lost that year is related to the type of loss that occurred in the forest in question.
To turn it upside down you could look at the measurements this way: if we stopped the deforestation now we could have saved 30,000 hectares of habitat on 70,000 hectares of cano
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Pretty much any time nowadays someone wants you to panic,
Pretty much everyone in our times knows that your stupid questions (pseudo sceptism) is just plain stupid.
For starters: the word lost implies that it was not replaced with new trees.
Under what rock did you live the last 30 years that you seem never to have heard about the world wide deforestation?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Indeed! We have literally _twice_ as many humans today as in the 1960's.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/...
The improvements in ecological efforts are overwhelmed by population growth and increasing industrialization of large populations.
Yeah, he forgot to mention the "invisible hand" of economics that would fix it all. Gotta love those Adam Smith worshippers who think that "my greed is part of nature, so it's good and will fix everything" and forget that everyone else slapping you in the head for your greed is also part of nature, and part of how nature fixes things.
Again, the feedback loop is part of a natural process.
I'll bet a dollar that if I go back through your posting history I can find you arguing against basing arguments on what is and is not natural.
Things are always changing an environmentally we (meaning the Earth) are a LOT better off now than we were back in the 60s/70s for example. Especially when the Soviets were in their heyday they were absolutely a massive force for destruction we probably will not see the like of again.
Ha! The Soviets are a mere blip compared to modern industrialism as a whole.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
-not all trees naturally regrow after wildfires. many forests after a wildfire take decades to regenerate, assuming they ever do, as they go through the various stages of development again. wildfires in Oklahoma cause a forest to die. then grasses move in, then brush, and slowly trees, and after 20-40 years you have a forest again. that's a far different cycle than a forest of redwood trees which are adapted to fire, and actually need it for theirs seeds, and the fire clears out underbrush but leaves many of the larger older trees wounded but still alive, so the forest never really goes away like Oklahoma plains forest does.
-a forest is a far different beast than a sapling planted in a new built subdivision
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Oklahoma-sized area, hectares, square miles?
For people using non-retarded units, this area is a bit smaller than 60 angstromkiloparsecs
I've walked through tree farms. They are about as close to a natural forest as a field of wheat is to a prairie.
A forest is an ecosystem, not just a bunch of trees.
True, but it's a whole lot better than clearcutting forests.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
and _almost_ dying from cancer is whole lot better than _actually_ dying from cancer, but either way still sucks a caribou's funky ass. Being better, but still shitty, is no means for celebration.
Being suspicious of virtutally all "science" reporting I am left wondering - is the figure reported "net" loss after accounting for areas where there was forest growth?
China Helps Reverse Global Forest Loss, With a Little Bit of Luck
According to a recent study the total amount of vegetation in the world has gone up over the last decade. This is mainly due to tree planting efforts in China, changing rainfall patterns allowing more growth in new areas and (probably) the increased amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The not so good side of things is that the plants aren't taking up all the extra CO2, it's still going up just at a somewhat slower rate, and if rainfall patterns continue to change a lot of that new growth could end up dying off.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
I also read that on average, the planet has been getting greener...
http://www.popsci.com/new-stud...
Show me on the 1st Amendment bobblehead where the moderator touched you...
Well, by all means, set the example and the rest of us will follow it.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Talk about geo-engineering mind-fuck. The tools to do it are right in place, just open your eyes: Trees, grasses, shrubs, best suited for the job and well tested for eons.
What is actually happening?
Humanity and it's internal power structures are destroying them.
Maybe the human DNA needs a patch from those plants to get healty?
Having had cancer and having numerous friends suffering cancer, and some who have died from cancer, it truly is a celebration to still be alive. Indeed it is much better than the alternative. Enjoy being young and hale 'n hearty, it doesn't last. Recall that joy one last time on the day when your physician tells you, "It Is Cancer".
Have a Day!
So what's your alternative?
Trees are plants. Tree farms are similar to wheat fields because they both accomplish the same thing. We need our wood from somewhere.
It used to be that loggers would just go in and cut down the forest without any replanting. Always plenty of forest, right? Well, turns out that no, there's not always plenty of forest.
So laws were passed, and nowdays the lumber industry has to maintain tree farms. There's paperwork that goes along with lumber shipments to prove that it's grown in a renewable way. It's much better for everyone all around. In most of the world, lumber is now a truly renewable resource. There are still issues in some countries, and there's poaching (a good redwood burl can net you tens of thousands of dollars - but getting caught will land you in jail for a while), but it's a hell of a lot better than any alternative I've heard of.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
Typical tree hugging hippie resorting to name calling.
The entire world will look like Easter Island before were done.
Natural isn't always good. It is not artificial. A natural process typically has been going on for a long time.
Therefore, if a natural process permanently destroys forests, we'd have to wonder why we still have forests. It would seem that the natural fire cycle keeps forests very roughly stable, over time. Therefore, it's useful to know how much deforestation is caused by human (and irreversible) causes and how much by natural (and presumably reversible) causes.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I've walked through tree farms. They are about as close to a natural forest as a field of wheat is to a prairie.
That's great, but I wasn't talking about a tree farm. Those are something else fundamentally different aren't they. Rather I was talking about removing existing sections of forest and replanting.
Let me show you an example of a coal mine. That chunk of hill, or I should say remains of mountain to the right in the image? That was a coal strip mine 30 years ago. The entire town that's in the image? That was also in the middle of the coal strip mine.
Om, nomnomnom...
Oh, and if you want some more pictures feel free to let me know. I've got a dozen or so more. I'm not being snide or anything, but the way things are here in Canada with resource extraction are fundamentally different compared to many other countries, because we *are* a resource extraction country and know the benefits of restoring the environment when we're done stripping out whatever we need to.
Om, nomnomnom...
We have been turning off natures AC units since the Sahara Forest was cut down. I guess it is time to fire up forest. I got some ocean front property in Tennessee I want to sell.