On 27 Jun 00 13:12:16, Roberto Verzola wrote:
>Don says Moore left Greenpeace long ago and has been with a loggers'
>group for many years. So how recent is your "recent"? Klaus gave
>figures on the high deforestation rate in the Amazon and elsewhere. So
>what is your "many orders of magnitude"? 3 orders (meaning 1/1,000th)?
>4 orders (meaning 1/10,000th)?
>
>You owe this list an explanation.
I should have said "formerly of Greenpeace." The Greenpeace reference
was solely to identify the particular Patrick Moore ---- specifically,
since satellite images were involved, to avoid confusion with Patrick
Moore the fairly well-known astronomer and space scientist.
The major point of my first post is that because the Amazon forest is
largely a post-glacial phenomenon, it is disingenuous to say that the
health of those soils is inexticably linked with the forest. In the
humid tropics, most organic matter is stored in *living* plants, rather
than in the soil. Soil in the Amazon was probably far healthier
*before* the rain forest developed, since the climatic conditions
producing the rainforest are not generally good for soil.
Moore's press conference was in March or April of this year. His
apparent intention was to establish that satellite imagery demonstrates
that the more extreme claims about Amazon deforestation rates (umpteen
'football fields' per second) were out of line. You can't have an
effective and productive discussion about policy and direction if the
numbers on which one side bases its position are out to lunch. In
agriculture, this is precisely the problem with Avery's position ---
his numbers for organic yields are downright goofy. Moore is saying not
that there's no cutting in the Amazon, just that many of the most
highly publicised numbers are goofy.
The numbers Klaus put up certainly seem to support (somewhat) Moore's
contention that the Amazon is one of the most intact (and least
endangered) forests in the world. I've *seen* what has happened to the
forests in Peru, and parts of central America. These concerns me more
than does the Amazon, if only because of the slopes involved. We should
also not forget that the most aggressive deforestation in the world
right now is probably the *boreal* forest, which is of particular
concern because the growth rates there are so abysmally slow.
Please don't anybody think that I've been saying there's no problem.
What I *am* saying is that we won't get very far solving the problems
as long as we toss out agendized numbers masquerading as science, and
as long as our approach is one of confrontation rather than
collaboration.
Bart
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