[xrp]

Oh boy.

[BlessedBeGod]

Oh, puh-leeze......

[Vaquero]

SMUG ALERT! MANBEARPIG ALERT!

good for the Amazon. who gives a capibara's @ss.

[Blueflag]

While I do not subscribe to the usual global warming hype, I am gravely concerned about anthropogenic damage to the Amazon basin. Huge areas are affected/ruined/altered 'forever' by irresponsible farming actions.

WE should be more worried about this than whether or not Palestinians have a homeland.

[Publius6961]

...the process, which would be irreversible, could begin as early as next year.
July 12, 4 p.m.?
In dimly understood complex system the only certainty is held by the insane or the demagogue.

The Independent on Sunday, quote studies conducted by the blue-chip Woods Hole Research Centre in Amazonia as concluding that the forest cannot withstand more than two consecutive years of drought without breaking down.
I always though it ironic that the "back to nature" Bugs and Bunny crowd whose goal is to eliminate big business as a concept, would use the words, "bluechip" to endow a cited source with respectability and with the cachet of competence.

It didn't work in this case..

If the Amazon is destined for deserttification, neither the insane nor the competent can prevent it. Whenever it happens.

[Notwithstanding]

Sahara desert could become a rainforest.

Just as likely.

[palmer]

"Dr Nepstead expects `mega-fires' rapidly to sweep across the drying jungle.

Forest fires cause global cooling from particulates. Plus a healthy rainforest produces lots of methane. Look at a picture of global methane (sorry lost my link) and you will see the most massive amounts coming out of the rainforests.

[Pietro]

oh no

WE'RE DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!!!

[Tax-chick]

And the process, which would be irreversible, could begin as early as next year.

Or as late as 2075 ... but it's all very scientific, really!

[Publius6961]

If I read this news item correctly, this nut case set out to prove what most six-year-olds in the world know: deprive a tree or plant of water, and it dies.

Al Gore "science".

Ok. Next "news" item...
Oh yes, the technique: cite a ridiculously obvious fact; prove it "scientifically". Then go on a rant with endless handwringing over (scientifically) totally unrelated causes and consequences.

[Publius6961]

“Dr Deborah Clark from the University of Missouri, one of the world’s top forest ecologists, says the research shows that ‘the lock has broken’ on the Amazon ecosystem. She adds: the Amazon is ‘headed in a terrible direction’.”

What's new?
Nature is cruel, unfeeling and uncompromising; and the one constant in nature is change.

[cbkaty]

..........yea..and San Fancisco may become a Mormon stronghold.....

[JustDoItAlways]

Those Amazon trees are sure resilient.

2 years without rain and they all survive. Most survived even the third year without rain.

Drought resistent tropical rain forest (averaging 100 inches of rain per year), who would have guessed it.

[wolfcreek]

Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda! Let us know when it happens!

[Sooth2222]

"...studies conducted by the blue-chip Woods Hole Research Centre in Amazonia...Dr Dan Nepstead started the experiment in 2002 – by covering a chunk of rainforest the size of a football pitch with plastic panels to see how it would cope without rain..."

Our tax dollars at work? He actually obtained a grant to see what happens if you exclude rain from a rain forest?

I wonder what would happen if you removed the water from the ocean? (Sadly, I am not a Ph.D. at MIT so I will probably not receive a grant to explore this brilliant idea!)

[Candor7]

Chicken Little syndrome. The sky is falling. That fact alone requires the immediate totalitarian transformation of government to MAKE PEOPLE STOP!

If anyone has been in the Amazon, you know that plants can grow so fast you can see them do it, like watching the hour hand on a clock.

The only thing that could possibly destroy the bio-mass of the Amazon Basin is a complete cessation of rain fall, and even then the massive compost process would carry plant life for hundreds of years.

This is just a revisit of the idea: " My daughter will be a virgin her whole life!"

[razorback-bert]

This just proves one should not do drugs and science at the same time.

[TheBattman]

Algore at it again? He just HAS to quit bellowing all that hot air - it's changing the Amazon climate....

Seriously, has anyone been down to the Amazon region? I have yet to hear what I would call a reliable source claiming that the region is about to turn into a desert. My understanding is that that would require the rain to dry up - and I haven't seen or heard any evidence that that is happening.

[Restorer]

Climatoligists are well aware of many past episodes of "mega El Ninos" in South America. These resulted in intense drought in the rain forest and huge forest fires.

Somehow the jungle always survives and regenerates.

[seasoned traditionalist]

"Global Warming is coming; Global Warming is coming. The Earth will soon become "Uninhabitable."

"We are all going to Die!"

"Repent now all ye sinners, (That's thee and not me, don't you know, for I am pure of heart--and don't own a Hummer, or use hair spray and would rather swelter than turn on my air conditioner) before its too late and God's wrath descends on all American, Capitalist Pigs who have used up all of His precious resources and despoiled His Universe."