I admit defeat.
Peer reviewed article in arguably the main international science journal 0 - 1 People on the internet who have an opinion
Vin
There's nothing incorrect about the study. What they did was look at satellite maps and determine how much land was covered by trees. That seems like a logical approach. They concluded-- and there's no reason to doubt them-- that more of the Earth's land surface is under tree cover than 40 years ago. That's extremely useful knowledge.
What they didn't do was look at the KINDS of plants that were growing. They accomplished their goal, but now it's up to other scientists to react to that data and use it to drive further investigations. No one is saying the study is wrong, just that it's incomplete.
This is why I get annoyed when people blame scientists or the media for things. The whole point of science is to seek answers to tough questions. When it comes to climate change or things like that, it's pushing the envelope of knowledge. So no study should be treated as conclusive. At the same time, just because you have two findings or two interpretations that disagree, doesn't mean you throw your hands up either. Each of those things is a piece of the puzzle.
The problem is that people are extremely bad at dealing with uncertainty and risk. And with more information at their hands than ever, it's simultaneously harder to think about issues if you really try (because of conflicting info.) while easier than ever to just pick a side and have tons of stuff to back you up.
The article from Nature is easy to obtain online. It goes over some of this stuff. It says that the major loss is coming from the tropics, that there is some re-forestation from abandoned farms going back to nature, that some re-forestation efforts seem to have been successful, but some of the coverage is coming from tree farms and global warming as well.
It doesn't draw the conclusions people want it to draw. There is no "yes/no" or "scale of 1-10" answer. Which is how it should be in science.
You see this attitude in how people treat news as well. People will say "Well, I read some left wing articles. And then I read some right wing articles. I take what I read and make up my own mind." They think this is a very enlightened approach and pat themselves on the back. But really, it's a fundamentally stupid approach.
The average person is not hanging out in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or 10 Downing Street. They're not experts in that area of policy, they're not experts in government. Most people are ****ty readers as well. So like, you have a reporter who has spent 10 years writing about this stuff. Or you have yourself who has spent 15 minutes reading a couple of two page articles. We're completely unqualified to render a judgment. We're basically just reinforcing our own internal biases when we decide which side to believe.
