Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Deforestation - Illustrated Quote
“Earth Skinned Alive”
Amazon Burning Background - Large (800 x 600 px)
Deforestation of Amazon forest by burning to clear for grazing lands.
Credit: NASA LBA-ECO Project (source)
“Earth, Skinned Alive” was the headline for a book review in the New York Times (1991)
When studying the deforested areas of Amazon forest, satellite imaging, together with field observation, is able to distinguish between clearing used for pasture and conversion to crop planting. In a 2006 report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that examined cropland expansion in Mato Grosso (the Brazilian state with the highest rate of deforestation), a strong correlation was found between the amount of land deforested and soya bean prices. As prices rose, conversion to mechanically worked cropland increased, while pasture use declined.
Clearing forests to create cropland involves complete removal of the original biomass. Fires that are used to burn tree trunks, stumps and woody roots, consume the carbon content of the former living material, and release significant amounts of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas. The area exposed changes the interaction of solar energy at the land surface, heating patterns, and the cycling of the water, The expected result is warmer, drier conditions. Pasture land use causes less dramatic changes than cropland, but even pasture is more harmful to the factors affecting climate than if the forest canopy had been left intact.
— Book review headline
From Stephen J. Pyne in New York Times (21 Apr 1991), BR19. (The book being reviewed was Kenton Miller and Laura Tangley, Trees of Life: Saving Tropical Forests and Their Biological Wealth.)
From Stephen J. Pyne in New York Times (21 Apr 1991), BR19. (The book being reviewed was Kenton Miller and Laura Tangley, Trees of Life: Saving Tropical Forests and Their Biological Wealth.)
Nature bears long with those who wrong her. She is patient under abuse. But when abuse has gone too far, when the time of reckoning finally comes, she is equally slow to be appeased and to turn away her wrath. (1882) --
Nathaniel Egleston, who was writing then about deforestation, but speaks equally well about the danger of climate change today.
Carl Sagan: In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) ...
(more by Sagan) Albert Einstein: I used to wonder how it comes about that the electron is negative. Negative-positive—these are perfectly symmetric in physics. There is no reason whatever to prefer one to the other. Then why is the electron negative? I thought about this for a long time and at last all I could think was “It won the fight!” ...
(more by Einstein) Richard Feynman: It is the facts that matter, not the proofs. Physics can progress without the proofs, but we can't go on without the facts ... if the facts are right, then the proofs are a matter of playing around with the algebra correctly. ...
(more by Feynman)
