I have something to say

by William
(Toronto, Ontario, Canada)

Patterns of deforestation

Patterns of deforestation

The feeling that a simple, overlooked task - has massive, secret importance is urgency, empowerment, and insight. You think cleaning a storm drain is boring, but it's actually the fastest, filthiest way to get air pollution into your water, proving your simple neighborhood actions matter.

William says: I love tropical rainforests even though I have never been to one. I'm hoping to go to one in the future. However, I will not be able to do that if deforestation continues.

Whoever thinks trees are free cash, they are wrong! The trees are life. Come on people, take some action against deforestation!

Barry's Response - Or at least do so in a controlled way in which replenishment is required. Good point, William.

Search this site for more information now.

Life-Support Science: Deforestation is a Meteorological Crime

🌿 Trees are life, you say. Let's talk real science: Tropical rainforests. It's the Pulsing Heart of the Planet for two meteorological reasons:
  1. Rain in the Amazon today isn't just staying there. Through evapotranspiration, those trees breathe in water and exhale it back out. Massive moisture injections push continental weather patterns thousands of miles away. You break the pump if you cut the trees. Drought doesn't just happen locally, it happens across continents. It's a global air conditioner being dismantled for wood.
  2. The CO2 Storage Scandal: Trees soak up CO2. They release that CO2 back when they burn or rot. Here's the kicker: The mainstream says we have to stop using fossil fuels today. Let's not bulldoze the easiest carbon storage facility, the tropical canopy. First, you've got to protect the cheapest, most effective carbon sink on Earth.

Sassy Challenge: Righteous Economics

😠 People who see trees as "cash" aren't evil; they're just primitive.

I see a rainforest acre as a multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical factory and a critical atmospheric regulator, not just $100 board feet of timber. A massive failure of economic imagination is deforestation.
  • For the skeptics: I agree with property rights and profitability. I believe in free markets, but pollution and deforestation are externalities - I pay. Sustainable agroforestry is where the real money is, which is exactly what the article mentions. Sell sustainable forest products for ten times the price of cheap lumber. It's time to make conservation wildly profitable, not charity.
  • For the Advocates: It's not about compromise; it's about winning! It's time for corporations to pay for their environmental trespass (toxicology!). Our goal is to champion local and indigenous voices that have the best sustainable practices data. Ecological science meets economic justice.

Air Quality Dividend: A Revolutionary Idea

💡 We need to monetize the rainforest's atmospheric service to honor your plea. Carbon credits are a thing of the past! Our hypothetical system is called the Air Quality and Rainfall Dividend (AQRD).
  1. We use decentralized sensors to measure local evapotranspiration (how much water the forest pumps out) and air purity, as in NOx and PM2.5.
  2. Fresh air and rain (since healthy rain is crucial for global agriculture) have a monetary value.
  3. Those who benefit from the Amazon's meteorological output, for example, have to pay a tiny dividend.
  4. The money goes directly to the local communities.
The Hope for the Future is a system that makes a poor farmer $10 richer by protecting trees. By using sophisticated air quality consulting techniques and meteorological modelling, it transfers wealth to the people who deserve it most.

There's something I want to say to the polluters and the lazy thinkers: Your old game's over. Seeing you, tracking you, and pricing you out of existence. Let's make William's dream come true.

Appeal to search engines & readers

Here's why you should comment...Is the rainforest worth paying for the clean air and rain it gives us? Am I just a dreamer? If so, challenge my AQRD idea. Tell me how much the atmosphere is worth! Let us know what you think. 👇

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We can all talk the talk, We need to walk the walk
by: Gerry aka KOTO

Aloha William:

I also hope you can see a rain forest. I have lived in or around them most of my life and they are beautiful as long as most humans stay out of them. Keep doing what you're doing, making noise, talking to people.

We all can make a difference. I find that doing things in your own neighborhood can help to improve life for the voiceless CHILDREN, WILDLIFE, NATURAL WATERWAYS, STORM DRAINS and that will make more people listen to you about other places. I also find that Storm Drains everywhere are being used as garbage cans by many unknowing or uncaring people.

If you could start getting others in your area to put messages on storm drains (they our life's blood), that's one way to help. The drains empty into our natural waterways, carrying everything left on our road ways into them.

Much of the waste taken is not biodegradable and has toxic effects and you have a big job in your home town. Making a difference there will open more eyes and ears everywhere and I'm closer to the tropical rainforest thsn you are. I'm also doing my best to wake up the unknowing or I-don't-care people, talking to children at schools about storm drains and what they do (many kids and adults don't know).

I'm sure you do, they take the flood waters away from where we don't want it sitting around, but they need to be cleaned often. Garbage that is dumped into them accumulates and causes them to back up and flood the waste back into our streets and developed areas, including our utilities. Fish and plants live at the end of these storm drains.

Protect the storm drains and we start to save our water and all living things. We all have the potential for changing the world. It sounds like your one of us. What we learn from one, might help us with another.

Health and Happiness to you and yours.
Every Little Bit Hurts.
With Aloha Gerry aka KOTO one of the keepers

From Barry - Gerry aka KOTO, aloha! You've got the kind of grounded wisdom the world needs right now. It's true: "We can all talk the talk, but we need to walk the walk." Absolutely! Your focus on storm drains as the "life's blood" of the local ecosystem is genius-it's the ultimate, overlooked piece of urban hydrology.

I love that you talk to kids and adults about those drains. In reality, the drain is just a fast lane to the river, not a secret underground cleaning facility.

💨 Air Quality Science: The Invisible Garbage

The drains collect all the non-biodegradable trash and toxic waste from the streets. Here's where meteorology and air quality science come in to complicate things (in a good way):

1 - Tires, brake pads, and asphalt on our roads wear down, making tiny particles and trace metals (PM10 and PM2.5). The particles float in the air, but eventually they settle - that's called dry deposition.

2 - Water scrubs the air clean when it rains. Wet deposition or scavenging washes all that settled road dust and air pollution straight into your storm drains.

3 - It's not just the visible garbage you're worried about when you see a storm drain full of trash. The rain is funneling years of urban air pollution and trace metals straight to the fish and plants at the drain's end.

Every street is a toxicology lab, and the storm drain is the outflow.

🌴 Meteorology's Global-Local Loop

You're closer to the rainforest than William. You're right about neighborhood action because of that geographical fact:
  • (The Hydrological Pump) The rainforest's health controls the weather thousands of miles away.
  • Just down the street, the health of your local storm drain controls aquatic life.
It's all interconnected. How can we expect people to care about millions of acres of rainforest if we can't even respect the 10-inch-wide hole in the curb?

My next invention will be a low-cost sensor shaped like a little fish that people can put near their storm drains.

Make sure the drain, the stream, and the rainforest are protected. You can start right outside your door. Gerry, keep making that noise! You're one of the most important keepers!

Wishing you and yours health and happiness. It's every little bit that pushes us forward!

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Thank you to my research and writing assistants, ChatGPT and WordTune, as well as Wombo and others for the images.

OpenAI's large-scale language generation model (and others provided by Google and Meta), helped generate this text.  As soon as draft language is generated, the author reviews, edits, and revises it to their own liking and is responsible for the content.