Amazon Rain Forests - NY Post

[priamus at my-deja.com]

Original article from http://www.worldnetdaily.com/forum/skyline.htm



ECO-SCIENTISTS  DENY  AMAZON'S  IN  DANGER

By BARRY WIGMORE

     FOR a dozen years,  pop  superstar  Sting  has  warned  that  man
has
     brought  the  Amazon  rainforest  to  the  verge  of  extinction.

     He and a host  of  celebrities  have  insisted  that  Amazonia  -
2.7
     million square miles of nearly impenetrable Brazilian forest, an
area
     nearly as big as the lower  48  states  -  is  being  destroyed  at
 a
     horrifying rate.

     But now, two of the world's  top  eco-scientists,  Patrick  Moore
and
     Philip Stott, say the save-the-rainforest movement is wrong: at
best,
     vastly  misleading;  at  worst,  a  gigantic  con.

     "All these save-the-forests arguments are based on bad science,"
says
     Moore, a founding member of Greenpeace who recently  returned  from
 a
     fact-finding  mission  to  the  Amazon.

     "They are quite simply wrong. We found that the Amazon  rainforest
 is
     more than 90  percent  intact.  We  flew  over  it  and  met  all
the
     environmental  authorities.  We  studied  satellite  pictures  of
the
     entire area."

     TV reporter Marc Morano, who's spent more than  a  year
investigating
     the rainforest movement's  claims  for  an  American  Investigator
 TV
     program that will be broadcast nationally  next  month,  says  he
was
     amazed  when  he  discovered  the  truth.

     He says the statistics he found--backed up  by  satellite  imagery
 of
     the forests--speak for themselves.

     "We learned that only 12.5 percent of the  original  Amazon  has
been
     deforested,  leaving  87.5  percent  intact,"  he  said.

     "Of the 12.5 percent deforested, one-third to one-half  of  that
land
     is fallow or in the process of regeneration. That means  that  at
any
     given moment up to 94 percent of the total Amazon is left  to
nature.
     That is not wanton destruction."

     Stott, who has  spent  nearly  30  years  studying  tropical
forests,
     agrees.

     "Many of these stars want to have an impact beyond their normal
music
     and the environment is an area that  they  feel  they  can  move
into
     quite easily. It's a convenient one for them to go to.  So  a  lot
 of
     the young teenagers, the 14-,  15-,  16-year-olds,  follow  them,"
 he
     says.

     Everyone has jumped on the rainforest bandwagon - from actor
Leonardo
     DiCaprio  to  supermodel  Naomi  Campbell,  from  Greenpeace  to
the
     Rainforest Foundation, the group formed by Sting and his wife,
Trudie
     Styler.

     William Shatner - "Star Trek's" Capt. Kirk - beamed down to  earth
 to
     narrate a National  Geographic  video,  saying  "rainforest  is
being
     cleared  at  the  rate  of  20  football  fields  per  minute."

     These eco-warriors say the rainforests are the  lungs  of  the
earth,
     pumping out oxygen. Without them, they  say,  we  will  all  choke
 on
     polluting hydrocarbons.

     The eco-warriors turned out in force last month for  the  10th
annual
     Save  the  Rainforest  rock  concert  at  Carnegie  Hall.

     Sting, Elton John, Billy Joel and Tom Jones joined  hands  with
Ricky
     Martin, Gladys Knight and Stevie Wonder  before  a  sellout  crowd
 of
     1,800.

     During one set, Sting, Jones and Martin donned Day-Glo wigs to
become
     Gladys  Knight's  backup  group,  the  Pips.

     After the concert, the  celebrities  trooped  to  the  Pierre  for
 an
     auction.

     Marie Claire magazine editor Glenda Bailey paid $8,000 for lunch
with
     Courtney Cox. An  afternoon  sail  on  Billy  Joel's  yacht  went
for
     $20,000.  A  walk-on  part  on  "Law  and  Order"  cost  $45,000.

     And co-chairwoman Sarah Ban Breathnach paid  $140,000  to  do  a
duet
     with  Sting  on  "Every  Breath  You  Take."

     Altogether, the night  raised  more  than  $2.7  million  for
Sting's
     foundation,  and  the  feel-good  factor  was  enormous.

     THE rainforest movement  started  when  the  environmentally
friendly
     Body Shop company decided to buy nuts from Amazon Indians  to  put
 in
     its lotions.

     Not to be outdone, Sting took three Amazon tribal chiefs  on  a
world
     tour in 1989. First stops: the  pope  and  French  President
Francois
     Mitterrand.

     Brazilian  environment  minister  Otavio  Moreira  Lima  was
furious.

     "We see this melancholy spectacle of an Amazon chief in  Europe
being
     presented like a prized wild animal in the hands of  a  rock
singer,"
     he  said.  "This  is  revolting  and  I  consider  it  an
affront."

     But he was ignored.

     Now  an  increasing  number  of  scientists  are  siding  with  the
     Brazilians, who have  for  years  insisted  that  while  their
Amazon
     policy may have been flawed initially, it has  since  been
corrected.

     Among them are Moore, a Canadian  who  helped  found  Greenpeace,
and
     Stott, professor of biogeography  at  London  University's  School
 of
     Oriental  and  African  Studies  and  editor  of  the  Journal  of
     Biogeography.

     Both started as conventional environmentalists  -  agreeing  with
the
     accepted  wisdom  that  the  rainforests  are  endangered.

     Moore, in particular,  was  in  the  vanguard  of  Greenpeace's
early
     direct-action campaigns, sailing into nuclear test grounds to get
the
     United  States,  then  France,  to  stop  nuclear  testing  in  the
     atmosphere.

     But in the '80s and early '90s the two independently  started  to
dig
     deeper into the rainforest issue. Separately, they came to
remarkably
     similar  conclusions  -  public  opinion  is  wrong.

     IF THE rainforest in Amazonia was being destroyed at the rate
critics
     say,  it  would  have  all  vanished  ages  ago,"  Stott  says.

     "One of the simple, but very important, facts is that the
rainforests
     have only been around  for  between  12,000  and  16,000  years.
That
     sounds like a very long time but, in  terms  of  the  history  of
the
     earth, it's hardly a pinprick.

     "Before then, there were hardly any rainforests. They are very
young.
     It  is  just  a  big  mistake  that  people  are  making.

     "The simple point is that there are now still -  despite  what
humans
     have done - more rainforests today than there were 12,000 years
ago."

     "This lungs of the earth business is  nonsense;  the  daftest  of
all
     theories," Stott adds.

     "If you want to put forward something which, in a simple sense,
shows
     you what's wrong with all the science they espouse,  it's  that
image
     of the lungs of the world.

     "In fact, because the trees fall down and decay, rainforests
actually
     take  in  slightly  more  oxygen  than  they  give  out.

     "The idea of them soaking up carbon dioxide and giving out  oxygen
 is
     a myth. It's only fast-growing  young  trees  that  actually  take
 up
     carbon dioxide," Stott says.

     "In terms of world systems, the rainforests are basically
irrelevant.
     World weather is governed by the oceans - that great system  of
ocean
     atmospherics.

     "Most things that happen  on  land  are  mere  blips  to  the
system,
     basically insignificant," he says.

     Both scientists say the argument that the cure  for  cancer  could
 be
     hidden in a rainforest plant or animal - while  plausible  -  is
also
     based on false science because the sea holds more  mysteries  of
life
     than the rainforests.

     And both say fears that man is destroying this raw source of
medicine
     are  unfounded  because  the  rainforests  are  remarkably
healthy.

     "They are just about the healthiest forests in the world.  This
stuff
     about them vanishing at an  alarming  rate  is  a  con  based  on
bad
     science," Moore says.

     "Anyone who has been in the jungle knows that  if  you  want  to
live
     there, you'd better take a few machetes. Otherwise, it'll take it
all
     back.


Cheers,

Chris Hocking
 - Quis custodes ipsos custodiet?


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