Amazon may become greenhouse gas emitter
Rain forest could go from sink to source
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/337827/title/Amazon_may_become_greenhouse_gas_emitter
BTW, here is a link to the peer reviewed paper: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v481/n7381/full/nature10717.html
So, as I have mentioned before, blaming climate change exclusively on the burning of fossil fuels and trashing any scientists who dare to suggest otherwise means we might be (likely are, in my mind) focusing on the totally wrong area. This paper suggests (more than suggests in my mind) that deforestation (i.e., converting native lands into agricultural use) has a great impact on CO2 levels. What if, as I have alluded to before, the real measurable impact of humans on climate change (leaving aside, for the moment, that we could very easily just be experiencing normal climatic variations (and further not even delving into the notion that according to the long-range models built to explain the globe’s periods of glaciation have us already in one and our ‘tampering’ with the environment might be keeping us all from experiencing a nuclear winter)) might have bupkus to do with burning oil/coal/gas, but could instead be due to our continual raping of the land and the sea. So, if we were to go with the environmentalists wet dream and overnight stop using fossil fuels (and somehow magically keep our economies from crashing (which is what I think they actually desire) and thus cause the starving death of _billions_ of people (gotta wonder if that isn’t also in their plan)), it might not change a damn thing.
I have no doubt that we’re generating greenhouse gases. I just think that the most we’re doing is biasing, in a very small way, the effects of natural, cyclical, events.
IF we wish to dampen natural cycles (of either positive or negative direction) we’re going to have to learn to control things by exerting considerably more effect than we’re currently exerting through ignorance and greed.
Scary, ain’t it?