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Comment by drivebycomment | Hacker News Reader

The headline is a factual statement. Also, the data says globally Earth is seeing a reforestration, not deforestration. That doesn't mean there's no localized deforestration, nor we should stop fighting against deforestration everywhere. But it also means it's not all doom-and-gloom.

The article is exactly the kind of anti-sensationalist article that brings the proper context and data to the forefront and highlights the actual challenges.

EDIT: Per advice, removed unnecessary part.

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Note that planted regularly cut commercial tree plantations are quite different from centuries old forests in their ecological potential and effects.

> The article is exactly the kind of anti-sensationalist article that brings the proper context and data to the forefront and highlights the actual challenges.

The article is a spin. It takes the fact "number of fires has gone down" and sells it as "forest fires are not that big a deal as you may think". In fact, forest fires are a bigger problem now than they were in the recent past. See my other comment on this topic.

> I don't see how trying to tell the truth about something can be equated with trying to downplay the situation or encouraging people not to bother about it.

Because it's a red herring.

It's a very common form of red herring, to be precise: taking averaged measurements of a whole set to infer information about a single element. The converse is also a red herring; inferring information about a set by analyzing only a single, cherry picked member.

"Fires Globally" includes "Fires in the region X of country Y", but doesn't take into account the specific importance of that region, the trends over time, what's going to happen to surrounding regions in the future...

(For a quick metaphor: You have 99.5%~99.8% of your body in perfect working order when your eyes have just been gouged.)

The fires and deforestation were actually way, way worse prior to 2003. I saw charts for the Amazon in the 80s and 90s and throughout those decades the forest fires were more than 5x greater than any point since 2003.

It's not a red herring if we're discussing a global trend, and contributing factors to it. And we are discussing a global trend, or at least the article is a criticism against other sensationalist trends to make everything look like doom-and-gloom globally.

A global trend and a local trend contradicting with each other doesn't make the global trend a red herring, and putting forward the global trend to better understand the local trend in the context is not a bad thing. Nowhere in the article suggests we should stop doing things in Amazon.

> Have you actually read the article ?

I would edit this part out of your reply, it's unnecassary to your point, goes against the rules of HN and will invite downvotes.

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