Absolutely Hilarious
I know I am late on this but I am trying to spool back up on this site so allow me to catch up. It turned out that that the IPCC’s Amazon claim (that 40% of the rain forest was at risk from global warming) came from the Facebook page of a 12-year-old girl. OK, just kidding, it didn’t, but the source is not much better — apparently the claim was just thrown up on a web page of a Brazilian activist organization in 1999, and then pulled down in 2003. Everything since has been one long game of “telephone.” The whole story is fascinating and worth reading.
Ludde:
Link isn’t working.
July 14, 2010, 10:05 amWarren:
Yep. I fucked it up. I do that all the time. Watch out for how frequently I mis-spell Anthony Watts’s name, even while I profess to be a great admirer of his inane ramblings!
July 14, 2010, 2:30 pmhunter:
Warren,
July 14, 2010, 2:32 pmNow the logical conclusion is a reality.
Your trolls have stolen your own name.
ADiff:
The Trolls pay complements, and argue one’s case, to the extent of their vociferous and sophomoric activities.
One might as well take a gander at this virtual Rain-forest of unsubstantiated (and actually ludicrous) contentions…all made in good cause one might assume http://www.rain-tree.com/facts.htm ….but then, what’s that? They’re a Complementary and Alternative Medical supply concern? Whatever their intentions encouraging sloppy analysis and abandonment of any kind of rigor in assessment of anything would be their personal interest.
No wait, how about any of the other countless sources that endlessly pontificate about a purported relationship between hypothesized AGW and loss of Brazilian rainforest? None of them has any scientific basis beyond something like “if it rains less the forest won’t regrow…&etc” pure speculation based on pure speculation.
Whatever the trend turns out to be for Climate Change, that rainforest is going ‘bye bye’ (at least as we now know it) in any event…simply because the folks down there will chop a lot of it down, thin it out and change it’s character to enrich their own lives….just like we did with our own aboriginal forests long ago. Deal with it. It’s really inevitable. Retreat to the ‘la la land’ of appeals to heroic action may be emotionally satisfying, but counterproductive, as they distract attention and resources from real positive activities that might actually improve eventual outcomes.
But then it makes sense, since environmental advocacy really is all about self-actualization after all, not the environment (except the internal self-conceptual environment, anyway).
July 14, 2010, 5:11 pmFDUK:
The Facebook page of a 12 year old girl? No
The webpage of a Brazillian activist organisation? also no
The cliam comes from an IUCN/WWF report Global review of forest fires, which in turn bases its claim on Nepsted et al. 1999. Large – scale Impoverishment of Amazonian Forests by Logging and Fire, Nature, Vol. 398, p. 505
While the cliams of the IUCN/WWF report can’t really be born out in the Nepstead study so the 40% claim is a bit of a leap and probably not correct its hardly as “hillarious” as portrayed by the headline.
I don’t think this hysterical headline is justified. It might have actually been better just to have reported the facts, but I suppose actually its not about facts is it.
July 15, 2010, 3:04 amADiff:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7883372/Amazongate-At-last-we-reach-the-source.html
Warren’s headline is pretty much on target it would appear. If anything’s “hysterical” it would seem it’s the IPCC’s vetting of sources.
July 15, 2010, 3:20 pmADiff:
And then there’s this from Watts’ site: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/11/another-wwf-assisted-ipcc-claim-debunked-amazon-more-drought-resistant-than-claimed/
July 15, 2010, 3:22 pmRuss R.:
@ FDUK:
“The cliam comes from an IUCN/WWF report Global review of forest fires,…”
Link?
And if the claims “can’t really be born out in the Nepstead study”, how can you say the report “bases its claim on Nepsted et al. 1999″
Your credibility is nearly as bad as the IPCC’s.
July 16, 2010, 6:29 amWarren:
hunter: thought you said you were leaving. Bye then.
July 16, 2010, 4:58 pmADiff:
In his science fiction Robert Heinlein imagined a set of mechanical servo-mechanisms referred to commonly, based on the work, as “Waldoes”. The point was their being engineered for highly refined, sophisticated and very fine manipulation almost transparently at the will of whomever directed them. If they’re limited to crude, blunt swipes (even in mindless service to the dictates of a fading convention) they don’t deserve the name Waldoes, but should more properly be referred to as ‘Puppets’.
July 17, 2010, 2:55 am