Data, Data, Stick to the Data!

Reviewed by: Rebeca Velásquez Carvalho  

During my years as a research advisor, I taught my graduate students that the best way to repel one’s personal bias is acquiring and analyzing reliable data. Always stick to the data available! They’ll confirm or falsify your hypotheses and enable the improvement and growth of science.

Likewise, decision makers depend on the evidence at hand, for they know that useful information is the most relevant necessary condition for a good decision. Neglecting available data either reflects the decision maker’s lack of qualification, or a deliberate card played in the game of power.

To illustrate my point (which may cause you a bit of surprise), lets consider the following data series. Even before knowing their meaning, we are able to identify a few distinguishable facts.

With the exception of couple of outliers, the red cells are mostly concentrated from the years of 1988 to 2001. Similarly, the green cells cluster in in the area from 2003 to 2007. After this, the numbers suffer a noticeable decrease, however never reaching the low observed in the years before 2001. Three phases are clearly detected: a low start followed by a rapid growth, and continued by a steady decrease. Therefore, we might correctly interpret that this phenomenon is in the process of recovery, after the 2003 high kick. 

We may also conclude that there is no clear trend now. The current grow could be just a local fluctuation due to external factors, as in previous recent years. Now, allow me challenge you to answer the following question: these data are actual measurements of what man-made phenomenon?

1.   The economic growth of China and its fall after the global crisis of 2006.

2.    The quick growth of risk investments in driverless car start-ups, and the stabilization after its consolidation around the traditional carmakers (Toyota, Mercedes, BMW, etc).

3.    The number of casualties due to armed conflicts around the globe, with its peak during the ignition of several civil wars, including Syria and Libya.

4.    The number of official alerts of burnings in Brazil, reaching its peak on 2003/2004, but maintaining a sustainable recovery all the way from 2007 and continuing to the present day.

5.    The number of whales killed by Japan, Denmark and Norway, reaching its peak during 2004, and decreasing at levels almost as good as the 90’s, thanks to the efforts of the global community and the activism of NGO’s such as GreenPeace.

For whoever chose the fourth option: wow, I was pleasantly surprised! In the midst of a global hysteria that the current government is burning the Amazon rainforest, I thought nobody would risk agreeing with number four. 

And this is where reliable information takes place. This data was copied from INPE, the Brazilian National Institute of Space Research.  INPE researchers are well known in the Academic community by their competence and isonomy. You can see by yourself here: https://queimadas.dgi.inpe.br/queimadas/portal-static/estatisticas_paises/

All available data provided by INPE point out to the same scenarios: the Amazon is not being burned out. We are not facing an apocalyptic event. Why it is so important that we all take these data very seriously? Here are a few of the reasons:

1.    Those who hate the forest are laughing, and they’re laughing loudly. Blind activism only works in favor of the villains. For instance, the boycott of Brazilian leather exporters hurts the players that care about their reputation. Worse, plain boycotts will benefit dishonest farmers, who make use of all this fuss to expand their territories into the forest boundary. Blaming everyone as equally guilty enables those who are truly in the wrong to hide behind others, and get away with more, if not all, of their crimes. The minority of farmers that are corrupt do kill the forest, yes, but they also participate in assassination and human enslavemnt. They are murderers. Diving a bit deeper into details, there is indeed a record of deforestation concentrated in an area by the south of the State of Amazonas (do not confuse the Amazon region with the Brazilian State of Amazonas). If this is the work of corrupt farmers, these criminals must be confronted by Brazilian legal forces. Shouldn't we focus on promoting activism on this issue? Allow me to propose a slogan: Stop The New Deforestation Frontier in the South of Amazonas.

2. Key politicians are playing their cards. Some celebrities and politicians are crying out to the media, in a Save-the-Planet movement. We don’t demand celebrities to be well educated about Amazon and Brazil. For the politicians, however, they are very well debriefed. But, they have a hidden agenda, and it is not the preservation of the forest. This is game of power, the same that kills people on a global scale. Brazil is being blackmailed in a geo-economics game with the interest of defending selected sectors of foreign countries and their elites, who are not interested in the future of planet Earth.

3. We are being manipulated. These cries against the current government are diverting the attention from the real motivation of the denouncers, both from Brazil and from abroad. Independent from one’s political view, if you follow the available data, there is no reason or excuse to serve as a marionette to political forces, whatsoever. I can't speak for you, but I abhor the feeling of my mind being twisted to comply with someone else’s will.

4. Any correcting action takes time: Waiting forever for something to transpire is naive, but to expect changes in weeks is absurd. The international community has to be both patient and persevering. Always, of course, respecting the Brazilian sovereignty over its territory.

5.    The Amazon does need watchful sentries: by wisely using reliable information, the global community will impart the right message to the Brazilian government in the correct way. We must pay close attention to this localized increase of burnings and deforestation. We all expect actions to avoid the same level of burnings as those from 2003 to 2007 (during the presidency of Mr. Lula da Silva). Again, we are not facing an apocalyptical event, as we can see in the next image from news.mongabay.com/2019/08/how-many-fires-are-burning-in-the-amazon/, but we need to be vigilant.

Mentioning hot summers, we are now in September, the peak of the dry season on a year with records of temperature everywhere. There is almost 100% certainty that the number of burnings during this month will be much higher than in August. How do I know? Am I in favor of this apocalypse? Or, do I delight to see the Amazon burn? No, I am just relying on the available data. This has recurred every single year, with the exception of 1995, and 2019 is a very, very hot year.

The situation is so insane that, only a bit more hysteria and we will conclude that finally the cause of the Global Warming was found: the Brazilian president.