Amazon Fires and Biofuels

What’s Natural 

Brazil’s Fires and Biofuels. 

published September 11, 2019

Trends on Amazon Deforestation

From leaf cutting ants that cultivate fungus gardens to flowers that fool potential pollinating insects into having sex, the magic of rainforest ecology always inspired my love for nature’s creativity. So, it’s no surprise that any and every report of burning rainforests would rally deep concerns across the globe. Nonetheless I am disturbed by dishonest gloom and doom regards recent Amazon fires. NASA reports since 2003 the square kilometers of forest burned each year has dropped by roughly 25 percent. But such good news doesn’t get headlines. 

Although the NY Times wrote the fires have no climate connection, meteorologist Eric Holthaus, who writes numerous catastrophic climate articles for Slate and the New York Times, suggested the fires show, “We are in a climate emergency”.  As of August 16, 2019, an analysis of NASA satellite data indicated that total fire activity across the Amazon basin this year has been close to the average in comparison to the past 15 years, but Holthaus dishonestly tweeted, “The current fires are without precedent in the past 20,000 years.” 

fungus garden ants

To heighten global hysteria, French president Macron and actor Leonardo deCaprio, tweeted photographs of forest infernos. But those photos were taken 20 years ago. Likewise, Madonna tweeted wildfire photos taken 30 years ago, and others tweeted flaming photos from regions far from the Amazon. 

Activist vegetarians denounced meat-eaters for deforestation, arguing forests are burnt to create pastures for cattle. But they failed to mention pastures previously created for grazing without deforestation, are now being usurped by biofuel cultivation. Indirectly, it’s the biofuel fad that has driven cattle grazers to carve out new pastures in the rain forests.  

Left-wing politicos blame the fires on Brazil’s rightwing president Jair Bolsonaro, a climate skeptic. They argue Bolsonaro’s views emboldened land grabbers. But the number of Brazilian fires, and rates of rainforest deforestation were far worse before Bolsonaro, peaking in 2004 under a corrupt leftist Workers Party. It seems every tragedy is just an opportunity to demonize one’s opponents, no matter the facts. 

Most 2019 fires have been ignited on land cleared long ago. To clear agricultural stubble or to prevent forests from encroaching on existing farms and pastures, Brazil’s farmers set fires as soon as the dry season begins. According to NASA, Brazil’s “agricultural fire season” traditionally peaks in July and August and ends by early November. To date, there is no data determining the extent of area burnt on existing farms and pastures, versus how much rainforest has actually been lost to fire. 

As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Between 2000 and 2005 an estimated 45,000 square miles per year of rainforest were lost worldwide as biofuel production ramped. Currently only 2.3% of Brazil’s agricultural lands grow biofuels. But that will increase as governments require fuels blended with increasing percentages of biofuels. Most projections suggest biofuels will dominate 36% of arable lands by 2030. More encroachment on rainforests is likely.

Brazil leads all developing countries in biofuel production. Thus, Brazil is at the center of scientific disputes regards biofuels and deforestation. Brazil is the leader in sugarcane production for biofuels. Sugarcane is typically cultivated on disturbed fields far from rainforests, so, there is no evidence of direct deforestation. But there are definitely indirect impacts. As sugar cane fields expanded throughout southern Brazil, soybeans increasingly grown for biodiesel were pushed northward into central Brazil. In turn, usurped pastures pushed cattle grazers further northwards into rainforests.

Nearly 55 million Brazilians live in poverty. Slash and burn agriculture is often practiced by poor farmers. To achieve a win-win solution for rainforests and humanity, we need more efficient land use. But fields once growing food, are being transformed into fields for biofuels. To make-up for lost food production, pristine lands elsewhere are cleared and burnt for new agriculture.

Still there’s hope. America’s early colonists deforested the land and drained wetlands. Marginal farms deforested 80% of Vermont by 1900. But as more efficient land use evolved, marginal farms were abandoned, and Vermont is now 80% re-forested. Similarly the UN’s State of the World’s Forests 2018 reports global net loss of forest area continues to slow, from 0.18 percent per year in the 1990s to just 0.08 percent over the last five-year period. If Bolsanaro’s pro-agriculture advocacy generates greater agricultural efficiency, Brazil’s forests should likewise benefit. 

Deforestation Index

Although there have been admirable attempts by the international Amazon Fund to promote sustainable rainforest agriculture, it has not been enough to raise Brazilians out of poverty. Worse, In the name of fighting climate catastrophes, biofuel subsidies and incentives encourage destruction of Brazil’s rainforests and savannahs, while displacing small farms. We must wait and see but having a newly elected skeptical president in Brazil might be a godsend. Better agricultural practices may evolve if Brazil’s government is not blinded by the false promises of biofuels!

Addendum September 13, 2019:

Having more closely examined the photo I downloaded from the internet of cattle and burning forests, I suspected the red line in the photo suggested it may have been photoshopped. I was just contacted by another scientist suggesting the same thing.

Although it doesn't affect the issue of biofuels, it is likely  another example of how photoshopped pics can be easily and incorrectly used. Although it nicely juxtaposes the fires with cattle,  I warn viewers that the picture is likely photoshopped and I apologize for having used it.

Jim Steele is director emeritus of the Sierra Nevada Field Campus, SFSU and authored Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism

Contact: naturalclimatechange@earthlink.net

Listen to the Trees

published in the Pacifica Tribune August 20, 2019

What’s Natural? 

Listen to the Trees!

This summer I taught a class on the Natural History of the Sierra Nevada for San Francisco State University’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus. The first day we taught students how to identify the trees. Once students know their trees, they can easily see how tree species vary with elevation, temperature, moisture, and snow pack. They can see which species colonize open sunny areas and which trees need shade before they can invade. Old time naturalists used trees to identify “life-zones” where different species of mammals, birds, insects and other plants can be found. Furthermore, when you listen to the trees, you can see change.

The class explored forests along the North Yuba River. Free from politics, trees tell us about changes in fire frequency, logging, climate change and ecosystem resilience. Photographs taken during the late 1800s during California’s gold rush days, revealed the total devastation of local forests. Gold miners needed wood for heating and cooking, for their metal forges, and for timbers to reinforce their mines. They needed wood to build flume boxes that altered river courses to expose riverbeds. Flume boxes also carried water from high to low elevations where giant water cannons completely washed away hillsides in their search for gold.

Deforested mountains - Downieville, CA late 1800s

Still, by comparing catastrophic photos of forests during the gold miners’ days to our current forest conditions, I was filled with optimism. The forests had totally recovered and again are quite dense. So dense, that local inhabitants fear there’s too much fuel on the forest floor that could feed catastrophic fires. Nevertheless, the lush re-growth is testimony to our forest’s amazing resilience. 

We counted tree rings and determined a majority of trees were no more than 170 years old. Those trees began their lives shortly after the gold miners had cut down all their older relatives. Occasionally we found a few larger trees, 300 years or older, that fortuitously avoided the miners’ ravenous saw blades.

Scientists determine the natural frequency of fires by reading tree rings and fire scars. Low elevation trees like Ponderosa Pines naturally endured wildfires about every 25 years. At higher elevations, where temperatures are colder and the snow pack lingers, fire scars suggest wildfires naturally happen about every 100 years. In contrast to media hype, fire scars in living and fossil trees suggest wildfires were far more common during the cool Little Ice Age.

Tree stumps tell us that trees once bordered Arctic shores 9000 years ago. Since then, cooler temperatures have pushed trees to lower latitudes and warmer elevations. Hikers in the Sierra Nevada often encounter dead trees several hundred feet above our current tree line. Accordingly, researchers determined that for the last 3 thousand years, tree line was mostly higher than today because temperatures were much warmer. However, during the Little Ice Age, between 1300 AD and 1850 AD, it got so cold, tree line dropped and tree seedlings in the Ural Mountains couldn’t germinate for hundreds of years. Ancient tree lines suggest if temperatures increase over the next century, it will not be a crisis. Trees will simply reclaim their former habitats. 

Trees reveal past rainfall patterns. California’s Blue Oaks are very sensitive to changes in precipitation. In drought years they generate narrow rings contrasting with wider rings during wet years. A recent tree ring study of Blue Oaks finds no rainfall trend over the past 700 years, but it suggests Californians can expect extreme droughts and extreme rainfall 3 to 4 times a century. More concerning, tree stumps at the bottom of Lake Tahoe dating back 6000 years ago, suggest Californians can naturally expect far more extreme droughts than living humans have yet to experience. 

Trees tell us how climate has changed. Fossil trees indicate Antarctica once experienced subtropical temperatures 40 million years ago. Similarly, trees tell us about recent temperature changes. Tree rings have correlated accurately with instrumental temperatures for over 100 years. However, since the 1960s, tree ring temperatures suggest a much cooler global climate in contrast to thermometers and models. 

Tree ring temperatures 

Tree rings indicate the warmest decades of the 20^thcentury were the 1930s and 40s, and temperatures have yet to surpass those decades. This divergence between thermometers and trees is best explained by the fact that instrumental temperatures are biased upwards when taken at hot airports or in areas recently suffering from growing urban heat island effects. In contrast, trees measure temperatures in natural habitat.

There are too many fear mongering politicians pushing an “existential climate crisis”. I find the climate history told by the trees far more trustworthy, and the trees are whispering there is no crisis. 

  

Jim Steele is director emeritus of the Sierra Nevada Field Campus, SFSU and authored Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism