Brazilian News...Raposa Serra do Sol reservation

Ok, so for my Global Perspectives and Realities class, I am trying to figure out what's going on with the rainforest in Brazil. I read in an awesome New Yorker article yesterday (Um, can't find it online, will add it later) that said something like that Indonesia and Brazil both contribute to 10% of the Carbon Dioxide added to the atmosphere because of their destruction of their rainforests.

Ok, I've known since 4th grade that destruction of rainforests is the worst thing ever (atmosphere, ecosystems, endangered species, the list goes on). But, it seems like it actually might be the worst thing ever. So, I think I'm going to slowly build my project up here (via my blog), looking at why it's happening. Maybe we'll be surprised, maybe not.

When SustainMizzou (our recycling club/organization on campus) showed An Inconvenient Truth last year, I was talking with some enviro-evangelists afterwards about what I could do and it seemed like the most proactive thing was to not eat meat from Brazil that was raised on rainforest land. Uhh...done.

So, I've been obsessed with Brazil for no clear reason for years now, and I want to figure more out about this. Come along!

The picture above is a map of where the Raposa Serra do Sol reservation is. There have been protests and bridge-burnings lately (nytimes article) because the government is removing non-Indians from the area. I don't understand this whole thing, but maybe I will soon.

links for next time:
nytimes: "Brazil, Alarmed, Reconsiders Policy on Climate Change"
nytimes: "In the Amazon: Conservation or Colonialism?"
mongabay.com: "Rainforests of Brazil: An Environmental Status Report"

FOLLOW-UP: Here are some articles and excerpts from them in a further effort to figure this thing out. Most of the links came from Wikipedia's article Scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming

• Don't Believe the Hype: Al Gore is wrong. There's no "consensus" on global warming. BY RICHARD S. LINDZEN Sunday, July 2, 2006 Wall Street Journal opinion article by a professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT

"Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don't know why."

"A general characteristic of Mr. Gore's approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the earth and its climate are dynamic; they are always changing even without any external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much worse. Regardless, these items are clearly not issues over which debate is ended--at least not in terms of the actual science."

• From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype By WILLIAM J. BROAD Published: March 13, 2007 New York Times article about scientists questioning An Inconvenient Truth.

"...these scientists argue that some of Mr. Gore’s central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism." "...there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data.”

I don't know, I'm getting kind of sick of this. I think the general consensus of what I'm reading is that the media and politicians tend to exaggerate circumstances in order to get people to do what they want. Scientists know that something is going on but good scientists won't presume that they know EXACTLY what is going on. Human irresponsibility and pollution are not helping the situation.

Sustain Mizzou, a green student organization at my school, showed An Inconvenient Truth last spring and I went. Determined not to make Global Warming a partisan issue, I kept an open mind and tried to find out what I could do to keep the world from overheating and killing itself. Most of the calls to action the organization gave were vague and hard to carry out. They included not buying meat from South America (because they have the unfortunate practice of slashing and burning trees to make more grazing land for cows), and using less electricity (bought energy saver lightbulbs, check). But, overall, I left feeling panicked and useless.

I am all for biking whenever you can and using less. But ultimately I want to know the truth of what is going on. I was over at my brother and sister-in-law's house last night and we were talking about global warming and they brought up Michael Crichton's book State of Fear and that they've heard that most of An Inconvenient Truth has been debunked. What?

I found this article in the National Post (Canada):

The gods are laughing:Scientists who work in the fields liberal arts graduate Al Gore wanders through contradict his theories about man-induced climate change

Tom Harris, National Post
Published: Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Albert Einstein once said, "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."

While the gods must consider An Inconvenient Truth the ultimate comedy, real climate scientists are crying over Al Gore's new film. This is not just because the ex-vice-president commits numerous basic science mistakes. They are also concerned that many in the media and public will fail to realize that this film amounts to little more than science fiction.

Gore's credibility is damaged early in the film when he tells the audience that, by simply looking at Antarctic ice cores with the naked eye, one can see when the American Clean Air Act was passed. Dr. Ian Clark, professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Ottawa (U of O) responds, "This is pure fantasy unless the reporter is able to detect parts per billion changes to chemicals in ice." Air over the United States doesn't even circulate to the Antarctic before mixing with most of the northern, then the southern, hemisphere air, and this process takes decades. Clark explains that even far more significant events, such as the settling of dust arising from the scouring of continental shelves at the end of ice ages, are undetectable in ice cores by an untrained eye. read more...