herpguy Posted January 17, 2006 Share Posted January 17, 2006 This thread is for the discussion of the rainforest; conservation, the life in the rainforest, etc. I think the rainforest is an important topic, and shouldn't be ignored. Peace out, herpguy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustStuit Posted January 17, 2006 Share Posted January 17, 2006 I always thought the rainforest was interesting because we keep discovering new species of animals there. It has a great diversity of life we may not even know about. Then people who do not care just chop it down, its very maddening... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AzurePhoenix Posted January 17, 2006 Share Posted January 17, 2006 The cradle of diversity, the heart of new discovery. Primordial Edens unto themselves. Wheeeeee!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
herpguy Posted January 17, 2006 Author Share Posted January 17, 2006 I always thought the rainforest was interesting because we keep discovering new species of animals there. It has a great diversity of life we may not even know about. Then people who do not care just chop it down, its very maddening... I know what you mean, just recently in the Borneo rainforest, a whole new species of carnivorous mammal was discovered. http://panda.org/news_facts/newsroom/index.cfm?uNewsID=52960 Last summer, I was given a gift for my birthday...an acre of the Borneo rainforest. Now, you can buy an acre of the Atlantic forest in Brazil here. Peace out, herpguy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattC Posted January 17, 2006 Share Posted January 17, 2006 Rainforest-advocates are often seen by parts of the mainstream as a little kookie. To these people, these forests are just a bunch of trees in the way of homes and farms. However, a rainforest has a wealth of genetic information, in the form of the greatest diversity (by far) of genetic code on the surface of the earth (the oceans aren't exactly the surface). That wealth of genetic code is also a well-spring of medicine, from which countless cures to human ailments have already sprung! Not protecting the rainforest is literally a death sentence to an unknown number of our children (or their children) - I'd argue that we basically know that studying the multitude of life forms in rain forests will yield, at the least, cures to diseases that shorten the lives of people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
herpguy Posted January 17, 2006 Author Share Posted January 17, 2006 I would like to add that 1/3 of the world's oxygen comes from the rainforest, so if we destroy it we'll have a hard time breathing. Peace Out, herpguy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustStuit Posted January 17, 2006 Share Posted January 17, 2006 They also discover many plants which have pharmaceutical value. This is important and they keep finding more uses for them and we are just destroying it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bascule Posted January 17, 2006 Share Posted January 17, 2006 I think we should be taking a serious look at the underlying economic problems which have lead to slash-n-burn agriculture... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
navynuke Posted February 4, 2006 Share Posted February 4, 2006 Rain Forests, or plants in general, take in CO2 and emit O2, while they are alive. Something I read recently that hadn't occurred to me before. When a tree dies, it releases its CO2, and I think that it doesn't matter if it dies a natural death, falling down, and rotting in the forest, or it gets burned, the same amount of CO2 gets released. Leaves that die and fall off release their CO2 as well. So it would make sense to burn it to produce energy rather than just let it rot away, especially if it could be burned under controlled conditions, with exhaust stack scrubbers to reduce particulates. Does that make sense or am I missing something here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starbug1 Posted February 4, 2006 Share Posted February 4, 2006 I think we should just nuke the rainforests to eliminate it as a topic for discussion -- Seinfeld I'm not trying to be defeatist, but is there anything we can do? Rainforests cannot be regrown fast enough (or to original fecundity) at the current rate of so-many-acres per day, and we'll, at best, see the complete and total wipe-out of rainforests within our lifetime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AzurePhoenix Posted February 4, 2006 Share Posted February 4, 2006 but is there anything we can do?sure. The rainforest themselves offer many delightful ways to get rid of those doing the actual harm; crocodilians, big cats, bigger snakes, venomous thingies. It's not murder if they do it for us! It's natural selection! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airmid Posted February 4, 2006 Share Posted February 4, 2006 Rainforests are a unique ecosystem, with huge biodiversity, very high biomass, and the fastest recycling of nutrients ever measured. We definitely need to safe them! One thing however, they do not, and that is produce net oxygen. Untouched rain forest is in steady state, which means that there is no net increase of biomass: every bit of growth in the system is balanced by decomposition. The oxygen that is produced by growth is lost again through respiration. Ecosystems that produce net oxygen are oceans (when dead organisms sink to deep waters where they aren't broken down), swamps and peat bogs. Of course, cutting down the rain forests and burning it will release a lot of CO2 that is normally stored in the system and taken out of circulation. When a tree dies' date=' it releases its CO2, and I think that it doesn't matter if it dies a natural death, falling down, and rotting in the forest, or it gets burned, the same amount of CO2 gets released. Leaves that die and fall off release their CO2 as well. So it would make sense to burn it to produce energy rather than just let it rot away, especially if it could be burned under controlled conditions, with exhaust stack scrubbers to reduce particulates. Does that make sense or am I missing something here?[/quote'] It makes sense, but there's a few things to consider. There's a lot of nutrients stored in the dead tree, like nitrogen, sulfur, potassium, etc. If you take those out of the system it can't grow back to its former amount of biomass, and thus decrease the amount of CO2 that's taken out of circulation. Taking the ashes back to the forest helps. The other thing to consider is that not all carbon in the system can be found in trees and animals: there's a huge amount of carbon present in the microbial population too. Depriving them of food will slow down the recycling of nutrients, and the potential growth of plants. One of the great strenghts of the rain forest, its extreme fast recycling of nutrients, is also its achilles heel. Rain forests typically have very thin soils, since organic material hardly gets the chance to accumulate in the soil. If an area of rain forest is cleared, the soil is very vulnerable to erosion. A thunderstorm can easily wash away the top layer and with it all its nutrients, leaving behind a barren place. It might take ages before a forest can grow there again. I think this makes it extra important to safe the rain forests. Airmid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starbug1 Posted February 4, 2006 Share Posted February 4, 2006 sure. The rainforest themselves offer many delightful ways to get rid of those doing the actual harm; crocodilians, big cats, bigger snakes, venomous thingies. Ah. But wait. We never hear about crocodiles amassing for a deforestation worker slaughter. It's too bad though, that this doesn't happen. They would probably replace them all with new children anyway, so shoot. I think we should have learned our lesson after FernGully. And dammit! Japan should paid more attention to the Raccoon War. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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