New Brazilian Environment Minister Finds High Forest Loss Rate Before Burning Season "Worrisome"

[hatrack]

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil's newly appointed environment minister drew a bleak picture of the Amazon rain forest's future on Monday, saying the latest figures for deforestation in April were worrying and that this year would likely be worse than last.

"The worst is to come. Now is the test," Carlos Minc told reporters, noting the period with the highest deforestation was historically from June to September when farmers prepared for planting by burning ground cover. I think it will be very difficult to have a number below that of last year's," he said.

Minc was speaking after data showed 433 sq. miles of forest were lost in April, up from 56 sq. miles in March. The sharp rise was partly explained by the fact there had been much more cloud cover obstructing satellite pictures in March.

About 2,700 square miles of the forest was lost between August and December last year, coinciding with a rise in global food prices and marking a sharp annualized increase after three years of declines.

EDIT

http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/37284

[tom_paine]

1. Ever read the book "Nature's End" by Streiber and Kunetka?

It is speculative fiction written in 1986 and taking place in 2025, and it is beyond prophetic and prescient.

Of course some details they got wrong. It isn't possible to speculatively predict every detail of 40 years ahead, but My God, how close they got.

I mean CLOSE. When I first read the book in the late 80s, I remember thinking that they exaggerated the timeframe to make the book more interesting, making the catastrophic changes seem closer in time to raise the tension and excitement of the story.

That was, of coruse, before the epidemic of "faster than expecteds" that clearly Mr. Strieber and Kunetka have been expecting all along.

And they predicted George W. Bush. Not only did they predict him, but in the correct timeframe, too! In the book, his name is Fallon, and he was the spit and image of our Fuhrer Bushler. Simply amazing! Sadly, of the few things that Streiber and Kunetka exaggerated on was the technology used to bring down this fascist monster.

I am not giving up anything of significance in the book, which is set 16 years after Bushler's downfall, so it's talked about mostly as an aside.

If you have not read this boo, read it now. I KNOW you will like it. Read it, and as you do, marvel that it was written in 1986!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0446343552/ref=pd_bbs_sr_olp_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212517962&sr=8-1

The reason that I bring this up, is that the Brazilian rainforest is right on time for their predictions couched as fiction. I can't say anymore because revealing that aspect of the plot will spoil a large part of the book.