Hiding the information away only helps the exploiters to win decisively.
Yeah the data is somewhat sensationalist, but still it is not false data and many people who would otherwise not bat an eye can sometimes be impacted into change by sensationalist or shocking presentation of data.
If I was like Bill Gates or something, I think I would have a different attitude. Only when information can actually inform my decisions does it become meaningful. No matter what I hear about global deforestation, I'm not going to do anything about it. So why even hear it in the first place? It just serves to pollute my mind and make me feel bad.
I think a lot of people feel that way, and it's not an entirely irrational response.
Perhaps the best solution is to choose just one or two problems to worry about and try to help solve. Let other people worry about the others.
The "Think Globally, Acr Locally" mantra suggest it's easier to influence your local community and government, rather than a global, hard to wrap your head around, abstract issue.
Some people may still decide that working on global deforestation is the most important thing to do.
Taking down forests is unconstructive. :)
I know that's an important design flaw: it can't differentiate between man-made deforestation and natural forest change. I'd like for this bot to not exist until there is a way to reliably measure the former.
But if I waited for that to happen probably I'd never have the chance to understand myself and make others see the problem being discussed here.
Moreover, reforestation is not taken in consideration because there is no evidence that reforestation undoes the damage causes by deforestation. Yes, the tree-covered area is there again, but is the biomass, diversity and ecosystems that the disappeared trees fostered there again? That's the real issue here. Let alone the fact that in most reforestation it takes decades on average for the trees to simply grow.
Wood is a renewable resource as long as the rhythm at which we exploit it it's sustainable.
I detailed this aspect of the bot in a blog post (imnotanerd.herokuapp.com/4).
TLDR: I think this bot remains important because it makes true deforestation data accessible for whoever it may concern and it helps people understand and track the issue in a way that provides certain "feedback" against traditional absolute deforestation data like "x football pitches per minute".