🎓 Doc Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@qoto.org

@bongo Is it working as expected now?

If anyone is interested here is a timelapse of world wide fires over the past 2 decades. You can again see these sorts of fires are very common and the map this year looks very similar to past years.

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/global-maps/MOD14A1_M_FIRE

It amazes me all the alarmism over the Amazon Fires lately. As someone who is a huge advocate of the environment and eco-friendly policies even I can easily dismiss the alarmism on this one with a little research.

Before I say what I'm about to say on this I want to point out, climate change is real, deforestation is a big issue, and the loss of life here (human and otherwise) deserves mourning.

With that said a few things.
1) This fires are not unusual in number or size in any way. Forest fires throughout the amazon and the rest of the world occur at this magnitude every single year during the dry season. In fact if we look at the past 15 years this year is not particularly high in any way.

2) Forrest fires, both intentional and natural are in fact good for the planet and eco system assuming their scale is not unusually high (which these are not). In fact they are BETTER than not having fires. The reason for this is forrest fire produce extremely nutrient rich soil that causes very fast growth the following year with high density. Sinc enew forests produce more O2 than old forests this is a good thing. Furthermore the ecosystems are evolved to need forest fires. Many trees can only spread their seeds during a forest fire.

Being a Data Scientist I feel compelled to back this up. I can think of many sources I could use from showing the fire map time lapse for the last 2 decades or other visualizations. But I think the best summary is the graph I attached to this post. You will see total CO2 emissions in brazil due to forest fires. This data is up to date as of this week. It is evident that the total mass of fires is not unusual high relative to the past 15 years. In fact it is actually much lower than the average during the previous decade.

#Amazon #AmazonFires #Science #DataScience #Facts