Deforestation Has Killed Half a Million People in Past 20 Years, Study Finds (theguardian.com)
- Reference: 0178896358
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/08/27/1729211/deforestation-has-killed-half-a-million-people-in-past-20-years-study-finds
- Source link: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/27/deforestation-has-killed-half-a-million-people-in-past-20-years-study-finds
> Land clearance is raising the temperature in the rainforests of the Amazon, Congo and south-east Asia because it reduces shade, diminishes rainfall and increases the risk of fire, the authors of the paper found. Deforestation is responsible for more than a third of the warming experienced by people living in the affected regions, which is on top of the effect of global climate disruption.
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> About 345 million people across the tropics suffered from this localised, deforestation-caused warming between 2001 and 2020. For 2.6 million of them, the additional heating added 3C to their heat exposure. In many cases, this was deadly. The researchers estimated that warming due to deforestation accounted for 28,330 annual deaths over that 20-year period.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/27/deforestation-has-killed-half-a-million-people-in-past-20-years-study-finds
Re:a study (Score:4)
There's other land that can be used that isn't old growth rainforest. It might not be in Brazil but we're definitely not out of potential agricultural land as a planet.
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So Brazilians shouldn't be allowed to grow crops in their own country.
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I think it's more of we can all acknowledge that (and this is without any form of blame so go getting personally offended) that our capitalist system has created a world where a nation is incentivized economically (this isn't about sustenance, Brazil exports a fuckload of beef) to destroy a large part of everyone's oxygen supply and a lot of other bad effects for everyone.
One we acknowledge that maybe we can figure something out where Brazil can still grow food but we don't raze the Amazon to accomplish tha
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Grade school level straw manning. That doesn't even pass at the home of SuperKendall.
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There isnt a country on this planet that let's people grow crops just where ever they want.
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[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The Amazon rainforest,[a] also called the Amazon jungle or Amazonia, is a moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin encompasses 7 million km2 (2.7 million sq mi),[2] of which 6 million km2 (2.3 million sq mi) are covered by the rainforest.[3] This region includes territory belonging to nine nations and 3,344 indigenous territories.
> Stop trying to make it seem nice
Stop living in denial.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_rainforest
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And, what do trees help a lot with? Making that stuff we breathe... believe it's called oxygen. I could be mistaken with that.
The deforestation is just for soybeans and cattle, along with oil and other mining. Despite the global impact of reducing a natural carbon trap, the cattle are most likely only local and maybe the soybeans are shipped (not sure).
Thank you for your uninformed conjecture (Score:2)
You are a clever guy and no matter how far out of your wheelhouse you're able to produce extremely valuable contributions to discussion through the raw power of logic, deduction, and whatever barely-relevant topics you may have expertise in.
I don't hate or blame you for this habit, it's a nerd habit, you may in fact often be the smart guy in the room, But step back and consider that this is an existential threat to humanity and entire rooms full of well-informed smartest-guys-in-the-room seem to think it's
Re: Thank you for your uninformed conjecture (Score:2)
Lack of food is a threat.
Just because you get to eat tomorrow doesn't mean these farms weren't required to feed other people.
Re: Thank you for your uninformed conjecture (Score:3)
Deforestation contributes to AGW contributes to food insecurity.
Your argument depends on not considering sustainability.
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"...doesn't mean these farms weren't required to feed other people."
At least today as it suits your narrative. Tomorrow it's a different story.
One thing's for sure, your overlords don't consider lack of food a threat, it will never threaten them. To them, lack of food is an opportunity.
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I'm sure the study also finds that those deaths are disproportionately in POC communities as well, so the deforestation is also racist!
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Cows. Beef.
70% of farmland is used to raise meat.
Meat is bad for your health, bad for the environment (and bad for the animals).
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Palm oil does feed people, but more often than not it's in the form of junk food.
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"Meanwhile, why was there deforestation? Well, to make farms."
Citation please.
"So, deforestation has fed millions of people."
Has it though, and more importantly, is it making the right people rich?
I hate headlines like this (Score:2)
While I agree that deforestation is bad and causes problems, saying "Study Finds" implies far too much certainty
Popularizers of science tend to report speculation, calculation, estimation or simulation as proven truth
Scientists are more careful about presenting their findings
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Gotta admit I didn't even bother to read the article but this sort of thing is usually more actuarial than empirical if that makes sense.
Also since you're nitpicking. The vast majority of generally accepted scientific theory is not regarded as the proven truth. There's a specific meaning to the words you used.
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So, just statistical extrapolation from a limited dataset by someone who wanted to demonstrate a specific relationship?
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Indeed.
It's kind of like these ads for nutritional supplements that claim all kinds of miraculous benefits. But when you look at the fine print, what you see is that they do a whole lot of extrapolation, something like this: "Garlic contains numerous beneficial healthful ingredients that (generally speaking) benefit humans in numerous ways (some listed in the ad). Therefore, taking our supplement is responsible for all of these same benefits." Sure, those nutrients are important and play a role in human hea
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oh, look at the trumper who joined in. Now, lets not agree that any damage could actually be done, right?
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What kind of self-respecting Trumper would say that global warming is harmful?
Also, what kind of self-respecting Trumper wouldn't be all-in on nutritional supplements (and shunning of the well-tested medical science behind vaccines)?
I don't think you understand Trump-supporters as much as you think you do.
I didn't say that no damage could be done. I said it's not valid to calculate a number of people who died because of deforestation. That is too many logical leaps to substantiate.
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The Guardian doesn't care; they'll print anything that suits their political agenda.
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And how is that different from the Washington Post or the New York Times, or most of the mainstream newspapers?
The full article is paywalled (Score:2)
But I read enough to get the gist. Deforestation means higher temps and that means people who can't afford ac get sick and die.
The numbers are probably correct. It wouldn't be hard to compare great strokes from before the deforestation to now.
Heck, parts of India are going to be unlivable soon.
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in other words, deforestation may be bad as a matter of opinion, but let's not call anyone's attention to it.
You sound like a real science-lover, I bet you're idol has an uncle who taught at MIT.
The flip side (Score:2)
The flip side that I don't believe many want to acknowledge is that the same actions also lifted several million out of poverty or otherwise saved/lengthened their lives. There's very little we do that has purely positive or purely negative effects. The real world is rarely so black and white and the choices we have a a series of compromises and tradeoffs. A person who is facing starvation tomorrow is not going to care about what the world will be like next year, much less 100 years, as a consequence of the
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Humanity needs to have discussions about where we're at as a species and start quantifying the externalities we've produced along the way, hang back, and correct those.
That is if it is humanity's desire to exist comfortably into the future. Let alone achieve the lofty goal of populating other worlds.
Personally I think humanity has a death wish so intrinsic to it's collective being that it's hardly aware of it's own hands tightening around it's neck.
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We only stop when civilization collapses. Problems have to be fixed as we go, or people start dying fast.
Half a million people over 20 years? (Score:2)
Globally? That probably puts it in the same category as toe fungus.
Re: Twice in as many days! Cool. (Score:2)
Ad Hominem is not a white rapper.
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Thanks for that comrade, hope those rubles spend well.
Square this circle (Score:1)
1) The Guardian isn’t exactly known for even handed analysis.
2) The world’s overall vegetation is 10% higher than it was 25 years ago, due to reforestation, etc. That’s the equivalent of adding a new Amazon rainforest.
3) FAR more people die each year due to cold waves than heat waves. The ratio is about twenty to one according to some estimates.
We need to hurry up with those electric cars (Score:2)
To reduce the deforestation we should redouble our efforts in rooftop solar, offshore windmills, battery energy storage systems, electric vehicles, and so much else to lower our CO2 emissions, reduce air pollution, and avoid digging for coal and uranium.
One thing concerns me though, where are we to get all the lithium and rare earth metals for these things?
[1]https://en.clickpetroleoegas.c... [clickpetroleoegas.com.br]
Oh. Maybe we should do something to discourage China and Brazil mining the Amazon for this stuff. Maybe open some mine
[1] https://en.clickpetroleoegas.com.br/Brazil-and-China-sign-billion-dollar-agreements-to-explore-lithium-and-rare-earths-in-South-America-and-challenge-US-dominance-in-the-energy-transition-dsca00/
Killed half a million people? (Score:2)
It just goes to show you... you do not want to piss off the Ents!
Thar she, till but recently, grows! (Score:2)
Don't look at me like that. I did say "timber"!
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A tree was felled, and killed a man. Since 1980, 18,000,000,000 trees were felled. Ergo, 18,000,000,000 men were killed by deforestation.