[quenix]

This seems cool, but somewhat unconstructive. Feels like receiving daily tweets about the continuous destruction of wildlife (but being able to do nothing about it personally) is a very negative overall experience, and doesn’t seem healthy. It is in effect receiving daily bad news which you can do nothing about.

[Santosh83]

I personally know many people who are now doing whatever little they can only because they got exposed to ongoing wildlife catastrophe through social media. Yes, they may not make a difference on a global scale considering them in isolation, but there are many more such people and the effects add up perhaps to make a minor but nevertheless significant difference in the long term.

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.

[smabie]

I dunno, speaking personally, the world has so many problems that it's best (for me) to not think that much about them, or be exposed to that much information about them. Maybe this is a bad attitude, but ignorance is bliss.

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.

[thomasahle]

> the world has so many problems that it's best (for me) to not think that much about them, or be exposed to that much information about them

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.

[maxekman]

Not unconstructive at all, just uncomfortable. Awareness to what is happening to our planet is key!

Taking down forests is unconstructive. :)

[Taek]

No you can do things about it. If more people are talking about deforestation, political parties realize it becomes a way to swing voters.

[abpavel]

To talk about the topic, one must first understand about a topic. Citing a twitter number does not help when it's not even known how much was destroyed by winds or fire and how much is reforested. Remember, wood is a renewable source, and chopping down trees is part of healthy forest management.

[imnotanerd]

> it's not even known how much was destroyed by winds or fire and how much is reforested

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.

[tarkin2]

Are you saying we shouldn’t report bad news if we can‘t do anything to help?

[TooSmugToFail]

It's called awareness raising.

[mponw]

Yes. For an even more extreme experience try following @AuschwitzMuseum. See how it affects your daily life and priorities. Does it make you cry sometimes? Lucky you. There is a very beautiful and important need called mourning. Enjoy.

[imnotanerd]

I somewhat understand your point here. In fact this bot has sometimes made feel a little bit miserable.

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".

[gonzo41]

It's more negative for the flora and fauna I would think.