Two Important Facts About The Amazon Fire.

Over the past week, the mainstream media has been ignoring the Amazon fire, the left-wing alt-media is talking about how the mainstream media isn’t talking about it, and the right-wing alt-media is complaining about how the left-wing alt-media is exaggerating it.

As readers of my blog know, I do believe in man made climate change. I also believe that a free market system is the best way to cover it. I do not believe that the vast majority of politicians have actually read any of the studies confirming man-made climate change, as the majority of the claims they make have scientific basis. Hence why the debate in Congress is between “if climate change is real why is it snowing in Washington DC,” and “we’re going to die in 12 years.”

However, the Amazon Fire is another example of us needing to do something about Climate Change. While it is true this fire is much worse than it would be in a world without Climate Change, this is a fairly simple-minded view of this natural disaster.

Here are two facts about the Amazon Fire that the left-wing alt-media more than likely won’t tell and the right-wing alt-media will only briefly talk about in between denying Climate Change.

#1: The Rainforest Isn’t Actually The Part On Fire

Have you noticed I haven’t called it the Amazon Rainforest Fire once in this article? Well, there’s a very good reason for that, the farms are the part on fire. As Reason pointed out:

It is routine for farmers and ranchers in tropical areas burn their fields to control pests and weeds and to encourage new growth in pastures.

Yep, fires in that area are not even rare at this point of the year. Farmers actually end up doing this all the time for a number of different reasons.

NASA themselves noted this back when they first released the infamous photo that brought this fire to the public:

It is not unusual to see fires in Brazil at this time of year due to high temperatures and low humidity. Time will tell if this year is a record breaking or just within normal limits.

Deforestation rates in Brazil are actually much lower today than they were in the 1990s:

Also taken from Reason

Brazil is currently doing a much better job at protecting its environment than it was just a few decades ago, yet now we’re suppose to be angry at them? It is true that the Amazon is important, however, acting like Brazil no longer recognizes that is nonsense when you consider they’re doing it better now than they were back in the 20th century.

#2: Forest Fires Have Gone Down Greatly In The Past Couple Of Decades

Again, while it is true that forest fires are increasing because of Climate Change, that’s only compared to where they would be hypothetically in a world with no Climate Change.

Here’s a graph of the average amount of land burned by forest fires since 2003:

Forbes found that the land burned by forest fires has gone downed 25% since 2003. The highs in general have been going down consistently since 2010. While the lows are also getting higher, the fact that the highs are getting lower should not be ignored.

While it is easy to believe one side is arguing Climate Change isn’t real because of snow, the actual science tends to be a little more complicated than that. Climate Change is a cause for alarm — not panic. Panic makes you do irrational things, alarm does not.