Record Fire 2016-2021: Fill & Download for Free

A partial list of bad things he did:*he incited a violent insurrection against the government,*he horribly mismanaged a pandemic that killed nearly half a million Americans,*separated children from their families,* lost those children in the bureaucracy,*tear-gassed peaceful protesters on Lafayette Square so he could hold a photo op holding a Bible in front of a church,*tried to block all Muslims from entering the country,*got impeached and then got himself impeached again,*he had the worst jobs record of any president in modern history,*pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden,*fired the FBI director for investigating his ties to Russia,*took Vladimir Putin’s word over the US intelligence community,*diverted military funding to build his wall,*caused the longest government shutdown in US history, just for openers.

As I feel can be said all too often of late, what you’ve heard is not what’s happening, and what is happening is something else entirely.To give a sense of the going narrative, we have this tweet from the President of France:Our house is burning. Literally. The Amazon rain forest - the lungs which produces 20% of our planet’s oxygen - is on fire. It is an international crisis. Members of the G7 Summit, let's discuss this emergency first order in two days! #ActForTheAmazon pic.twitter.com/dogOJj9big— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) August 22, 2019So, about this:That’s the opposite of what literally means.That picture is a stock photo that’s at least 16 years old.The Amazon basin is on fire every year — to the tune of no fewer than tens of thousands of fires each season.Most of these fires are set by ranchers to clear out brush and initiate new grass growth. That is, they’re not the product of climate change (though they are making climate change worse).Per NASA, the number of current fires is actually slightly under average for the past fifteen years. There are no meaningful records being set.While important to carbon capture, the Amazon rainforest doesn’t produce 20% of the world’s oxygen, nor anywhere close. (This claim is so misleading that I’m going to give it its own section.)Now, this isn’t to say that nothing alarming is happening right now. Quite the opposite! But, as often tends to be the case, the real problems here are much messier than the headlines would suggest.But before we get into all that, let’s turn back to that curious “world’s lungs” bit for a minute.Memes vs. Science[2021 EDIT: I’ve written an updated version of this story here. While I’m keeping this one mostly intact for reference, I’m shifting my corrections policy to the new writeup.]While the whole “[the Amazon] produces 20% of our planet’s oxygen” claim is oft-repeated (some say 28%), it’s hard to find an original source. That said, it doesn’t really matter, as the claim is meaningless anyway. While it’s true that individual trees are pretty good at oxygen turnover, there’s a more basic fact in play here:Mature forests are (mostly) oxygen and carbon-dioxide neutral.Simplifying a bit, trees are just banks that take carbon deposits and give oxygen loans. For as long as the bank is open (i.e., for as long as the tree is alive), it takes additional deposits and issues new loans. But trees don’t live forever, and mature forests are generally net-zero as to trees living and dying. Birth and growth are balanced by death and decline, and so the cycle goes.Relevant to our point here, when a tree meets its end its carbon deposits are released via a combination of decay and combustion. Just so, the surplus oxygen it’d loaned out is offset by the consumption of termites and all the other little things that feast upon its remains. (It gets a lot more complicated, but this cartoonish version works for our purposes. EDIT: See additional note at the end.)So, at a very basic level:Carbon/CO2 that’s locked into a bank is carbon that’s not floating about in the atmosphereCarbon in the atmosphere contributes to global warming, which is bad for a lot of ultra-sensitive life-supporting balancesPlanting new trees increases the amount of carbon locked into banks, which is goodReducing existing forests is equivalent to those banks opening their vaults, which is badYou’ll note that none of this has much do to with oxygen. It isn’t that oxygen isn’t important. It’s just that we have loads of it, and a slight dip in the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere isn’t a biggie. We’re in no immediate danger of running low, and mature forests aren’t helping all that much on that front anyway. While we obviously don’t want to lose the trees we do have, the current fires in the Amazon are essentially meaningless vis-à-vis our oxygen supply.Now, what does matter is the carbon being released — which is something worth looking at in more detail.Fire AccountancyOne reason this story has blown up is that INPE’s (Brazil’s NASA) fire counts make this year look like a noticeable outlier, especially if you only compare 2019 YTD to the equivalent period in 2013 or 2018.Looking at the most popular chart making the rounds (taken from this BBC article):If you’re wondering why the cutoff is 2013, that’s as long as INPE has been collecting this data. They’re pretty new at this.[EDIT: I was wrong here. INPE’s data goes back to 1998, and can be found here. The site is in Portuguese, but the data is pretty self-explanatory. It shows unique fires per month and per year, with high/low/mean numbers at the bottom.]Without meaning to cast shade at their efforts, it’s worth noting that INPE’s data contrasts quite a bit with NASA’s. While this is tricky to adjudicate, my subjective bias is that NASA’s records are more useful, in that they have best-in-class everything and more political independence.If we look at GFED’s numbers (based on NASA’s data), the picture going into August looks very different:And even the most current numbers (updated August 22nd) suggest that we’re still behind 2016’s pace:And here’s the rub: 2016 ended up with only 257k fires vs. 301k for 2017. The moral? We’re just getting into the fire season, and data through August just isn’t all that predictive as to where the year will end up. (I mean, why would it be?)Oh, and 2016 had only about half as many fires as 2010 (which saw over 500k!). We’ve seen a lot more fires in very recent memory. What’s happening now, while bad, isn’t exactly remarkable, either in terms of overall activity or expected emissions:(While that 2019 number may very well rise from the current estimate, we have no idea by how much, as we’re far too early into the season to know.)Anyway, if the number of current fires isn’t the issue, then what is?[EDIT: Since I’m in here editing, may as well give the most recent data. GFED says YTD fires as of August 24th are still behind 2016, though August itself has been worse (44,705 vs. 65,792). INPE says August has had 42,061 as of the 25th, and put August 2016 at 39,088. This trajectory isn’t great, but also doesn’t tell us much given the low correlation between August totals and the rest of the season.]Under New ManagementBrazil got a new President this year, Jair Bolsonaro. While he’s not exactly the Brazilian version of Trump, their policies and general outlook do look pretty similar. Like Trump, Bolsonaro was elected on a “drain the swamp” sort of platform, where his main selling point was his claim that he’d reform the notorious corruption of his predecessors. Also like Trump, he’s not especially a fan of ceding his country’s economic interests to outside forces (nor to any domestic bureaucracy).While there’s debate to be had as to whether a regulatory rollback of the policies protecting the rainforest will actually help Brazil economically on a longer timeline (climate effects aside), what’s more certain is that said rollback is going to have the immediate effect of making ranchers happier and more profitable.As context, some data from the folks at Yale:Cattle ranching is the largest driver of deforestation in every Amazon country, accounting for 80% of current deforestation rates. Amazon Brazil is home to approximately 200 million head of cattle, and is the largest exporter in the world, supplying about one quarter of the global market.So, what’s been happening for a long time is that Brazilian ranchers clear out a bunch of trees to make room for pasture (using mostly-controlled fires as part of the conversion process), then use this land in a wildly inefficient way to raise cattle (some third of which they export, mostly to Asia).What seems to be happening now is that Bolsonaro is giving ranchers implicit (if not also explicit) encouragement to take this practice up a notch, as it’s an easy way of goosing cheap revenue. (Some also argue that he’s trying to displace indigenous folks and generally weaken international control over the rainforest so as to allow new highway and infrastructure projects — but these are harder elements for me to verify or quantify.)Now, so far as this goes, this is indeed bad news. While we don’t need the rainforest for oxygen in any immediate sense, we do need all that carbon to stay in those trees. There are also all kinds of other nasty consequences to Amazonian deforestation. It’s something we really want to avoid. And it would be particularly tragic if we couldn’t, in that this failure would be the clear reversal of a trend.(Source: Deforestation in the Amazon.)The big questions:How much deforestation will Bolsonaro’s policies actually lead to?Is there anything that can be done to reduce said number?In the first case, I’m skeptical that we have enough public data to know at this point. Like, his intent is clear enough. It’s entirely possible that September is going to see a 2010-esque number of fires, and it’s entirely possible that unusually dry weather will lead to many of those fires spreading. But it’s also possible that those numbers will rise rather modestly, and we won’t know until we know. (While we should be appropriately vigilant in tracking developments, the big thing to be avoided here is attacking Bolsonaro with a narrative that will let him turn to his base and say “fake news”, which is more or less what’s happening right now.)In the second case, I think we have to take a hard look at the sorts of things the international community can do, particularly in terms of what’s likely to be productive vs. what’s likely to have the opposite effect.Means of AddressLet’s go back to that Macron tweet again.So when France's @EmmanuelMacron tweeted that the #G7 should discuss the emergency in the burning Amazon ("'our' house") https://t.co/Pi32uL9idO did he do so fully aware of how that'd be wonderful fuel for @jairbolsonaro's nationalism? https://t.co/NsfPMlc5Xe pic.twitter.com/fjPMW18nJi— Andrew Revkin (@Revkin) August 23, 2019For those having a hard time making out the text on mobile, the heart of Bolsonaro’s retort was:The French President’s suggestion that Amazonian issues be discussed at the G7 without the participation of the countries of the region evokes a misplaced colonialist mindset in the 21st century.Two things here:This message is going to sell at homeHe’s not entirely wrongThere’s a complicated tension between national sovereignty and global interdependence. While the rest of the world clearly has a lot to lose with continued Amazonian deforestation, it isn’t likely that taking a “we will impose our will on you and your real estate” approach is going to help.Just consider our standing when it comes to telling other countries who to elect, how to use their natural resources, and how to treat their indigenous populations. On which grounds are we expecting them to be persuaded? Especially when we’re the ones importing cheap palm oil and beef jerky and thereby profiting from the very behaviour we’re condemning!This is a defining problem of the coming era. Developing nations are turning to the playbook we used to reach our own heights, and us telling them “but you can’t do that now” is not going to be especially compelling. We need a better class of argument, and a lot less hypocrisy.Parting ThoughtsA few things stood out as I was researching this story:Brazilian cattle exports are only worth about $7bn USD or so (if you include domestic consumption, it’s closer to $25bn)Most Brazilian cattle ranchers are brutally inefficient in how they use their land. But they need investment dollars to scale the best improvementsWhile lots of US food companies are getting pretty good at this whole meat alternatives thing, the industry could use a lot of R&D capital.Taken together, you kinda wonder if the answer isn’t just using a carbon tax to fund all this stuff. Give Brazilian ranchers grants to make their cattle-raising more efficient, then offer additional incentives if they manage production without cutting trees or starting uncontrolled fires. And at the same time figure out how to shift more global eaters to lab-grown or plant-based alternatives that don’t suck.As ever, creative incentives move the world more than moralizing ever has or can.EDIT: As a point of clarity, while all forests tend towards neutrality over long enough timelines, there is evidence that many older forests are still banking more carbon than they release. Some can build incredible density, and are protected from net-zero die off by cooler weather and plenty of rain. But that’s effectively just a buildup for a future carbon release. It may take decades (or even centuries), but at some point a dry season will come and most of that carbon will get released. The particularly concerning thing is that our current warming is making our existing forests more vulnerable. We’re seeing this in Canada now (where our forests are actually carbon positive at present), and the big concern in the Amazon is that continued deforestation may push that ecosystem over a tipping point, where hotter and drier seasons will continue to thin out what’s left, creating a death cycle turning the rainforest into savanna.All said, the global alarm about the fate of the Amazon is reasonable. We’re just not directing our worry in a productive direction. If we want to save the Amazon, we have to give positive incentives to a whole lot of farmers and voters while not pushing them further towards Bolsonaro.

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