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The Awe-Inspiring, Absolutely Crucial Amazon · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey,
0:11
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's
0:14
Speaker 1: Charles W Chuck Bryant, and Jerry Jerome Roland. And you
0:17
Speaker 1: put the three of us together, put some super glue
0:20
Speaker 1: between us, hold us together for an hour and a half.
0:24
Speaker 1: You've got an episode of Stuff You Should Know. I
0:29
Speaker 1: love Olivia helped us with this. I love her title
0:31
Speaker 1: of this one. It was titled the awe Inspiring, absolutely
0:35
Speaker 1: Crucial Amazon. Yep. And that's what we're going to talk about.
0:40
Speaker 1: This amazing biome about the size of the continental United
0:45
Speaker 1: States that it's you want me to keep going? Yeah,
0:52
Speaker 1: that is so big that it has I mean, how
0:57
Speaker 1: big is it compared to the world, Like one percent
0:59
Speaker 1: of the world of the Earth's surface, Yes, but houses
1:03
Speaker 1: about thirty percent of the biodiversity. Yeah, the world's terrestrial species.
1:09
Speaker 1: I mean, like it's it's really difficult to overstate just
1:14
Speaker 1: how unique and important the Amazon rainforest is. It's want
1:18
Speaker 1: to go now, Yeah, I like looking at pictures of it.
1:24
Speaker 1: It would be cool. I'm sure it would be cool,
1:26
Speaker 1: but it'd be one of those things where I wish
1:27
Speaker 1: I could just teleport there and like hang out and
1:29
Speaker 1: then teleport home. Like that's probably a big trip to
1:31
Speaker 1: get into the Amazon these days, you know. Yeah, And
1:34
Speaker 1: I'm also curious about what kind of trips are good
1:38
Speaker 1: trips that don't disturb things in such a way, like
1:42
Speaker 1: where you're not just some like Credi American tourists doing
1:45
Speaker 1: the wrong thing. Right for sure, for sure. But one
1:48
Speaker 1: of the things about the Amazon is that a lot
1:51
Speaker 1: of people take it as this pristine, untouched natural wilderness
1:57
Speaker 1: that we're trying to protect. And for a very long time,
2:00
Speaker 1: that's what that was the consensus, not just among the
2:02
Speaker 1: general public, but among anthropologists, archaeologists, um, a bunch of
2:07
Speaker 1: different oologists, and that the people who had lived there
2:11
Speaker 1: lived so lightly upon the land that they were almost
2:16
Speaker 1: you know, they were they were almost having about the
2:19
Speaker 1: same impact as some of the other like some of
2:21
Speaker 1: the wildlife there, that it just wasn't they weren't impacting
2:25
Speaker 1: it enough to even consider it a significant amount, And
2:29
Speaker 1: that that Amazon was just this natural gift on Earth
2:34
Speaker 1: m that we we had, you know, as part of
2:37
Speaker 1: our cultural or global heritage, right, yeah, like a giant
2:41
Speaker 1: international park or something exactly. So what we've come to
2:45
Speaker 1: find is that that's absolutely not the case. That the
2:47
Speaker 1: Amazon was actually not entirely but significant chunks of it
2:52
Speaker 1: were engineered by humans, and that probably the best way
2:58
Speaker 1: to preserve it is to hand as much as we
3:01
Speaker 1: can of it over to the humans who have traditionally
3:04
Speaker 1: lived there, who are the descendants of the people who
3:08
Speaker 1: engineered it years back. Yeah, which, well, we got some
3:13
Speaker 1: stats on that later, but I thought that was pretty cool. Yeah,
3:15
Speaker 1: for sure, So I we should probably start further back
3:18
Speaker 1: than humans, even because the Amazon has been around for
3:22
Speaker 1: about the last fifteen million years, and it started out
3:24
Speaker 1: as a giant lake, yeah, a big freshwater lake. And
3:29
Speaker 1: over time, like to the tune of millions of years,
3:32
Speaker 1: sea levels fell and eventually, you know, things are going
3:35
Speaker 1: to change geologically speaking around it, and it became a
3:39
Speaker 1: wetlands and then about eleven millionish years ago it finally
3:44
Speaker 1: turned into a river system flowing east into the ocean.
3:49
Speaker 1: But that wasn't all right. Things continue to change from there. Yeah,
3:53
Speaker 1: So basically they carved the rivers flowing from the headwaters
3:58
Speaker 1: in the Andes eastward towards the Atlanta. They carved well,
4:03
Speaker 1: they made an impression on the continent and they also
4:05
Speaker 1: brought sediment to the river, so soils started to grow,
4:10
Speaker 1: which is really significant because tropical rainforest soil is typically
4:16
Speaker 1: rather infertile because it's so hot and so humid that
4:20
Speaker 1: stuff decomposes basically too quickly to create nutrients trapped in
4:25
Speaker 1: the soil. So the fact that that there were sediments,
4:29
Speaker 1: that there were nutrients being brought into it by the
4:31
Speaker 1: river is what allowed the i Amazon basin to become
4:35
Speaker 1: so lush, yeah, and diverse. So still, this is, you know,
4:40
Speaker 1: like eleven millions years ago, you had savannahs, you had
4:44
Speaker 1: big patches like Olivia called them islands of forests, and
4:48
Speaker 1: he had all sorts of sort of smaller biomes. And
4:51
Speaker 1: then through different ice ages ages, we'll just call them ages. Sure,
4:57
Speaker 1: things were changing, things were shifting. It became wetter than
5:01
Speaker 1: it became drier. The river system would change direction like
5:06
Speaker 1: in its flow. And basically if you go back about
5:10
Speaker 1: five million years is where you finally get to the
5:13
Speaker 1: point where the Amazon kind of as we know it
5:17
Speaker 1: speciologically speaking, I don't know that's a word, but that's
5:22
Speaker 1: kind of where things started as far as what we
5:24
Speaker 1: know lives there today. Yeah, you would if you went
5:28
Speaker 1: back five million years, four million years, you would probably
5:31
Speaker 1: recognize it more than you would have, you know, several
5:35
Speaker 1: million years before that. Yeah, So for the past thirteen
5:39
Speaker 1: thousand years at least, humans have been shaping the Amazon
5:44
Speaker 1: as well. We've talked a lot about some of the
5:47
Speaker 1: law civilizations of the Maya and other Mesoamerican groups, indigenous groups, well,
5:56
Speaker 1: they were no strangers to the Amazon basin, and so
6:00
Speaker 1: much the same way that we've discovered ancient Maya cities,
6:04
Speaker 1: we've also discovered other ancient cultures in the Amazon as well.
6:09
Speaker 1: We'll talk a little more about them in a second.
6:11
Speaker 1: But one of the big marks that humans left on
6:14
Speaker 1: the Amazon was something called terra pretta, which is black
6:18
Speaker 1: soil in Portuguese, and black soil refers to highly fertile,
6:23
Speaker 1: highly productive soil found in huge swaths of the Amazon
6:28
Speaker 1: basin that were basically created. These soils were created a
6:35
Speaker 1: couple of thousand years ago. They're still fertile today. They
6:40
Speaker 1: you can still put a plant in this soil and
6:43
Speaker 1: not fertilize it and it will grow very very well,
6:46
Speaker 1: which again is really uncharacteristic for an Amazon rainforest. So
6:49
Speaker 1: they started looking into it and they found that there
6:52
Speaker 1: was a technique that was either purposeful or accidental. Either way,
6:56
Speaker 1: it created this terra pretta where they would they would
6:59
Speaker 1: create landscapes of biochart. They would do these low intensity
7:02
Speaker 1: burns that didn't burn trees all the way down into ash,
7:06
Speaker 1: but left huge chunks of charcoal which got subsumed into
7:10
Speaker 1: the soil along with food waste and sometimes broken pottery,
7:13
Speaker 1: and that that would hold this organic available carbon in
7:17
Speaker 1: the soil again for thousands of years. And there I
7:22
Speaker 1: feel like the consensus is leaning more toward this was
7:25
Speaker 1: a purposeful thing that they did to create the soil,
7:28
Speaker 1: because we also know that they used it for agriculture too. Yeah,
7:32
Speaker 1: so the thought that it was just hunters and gatherers
7:36
Speaker 1: for many, many tens of thousands of years is looking
7:40
Speaker 1: like that's not true, and it was more hunters and farmers, right.
7:43
Speaker 1: They probably did some gathering as well. Should imagine if
7:45
Speaker 1: there was something to gather, they weren't like, I'm not
7:49
Speaker 1: gathering anything. It's not part of the job description. We
7:52
Speaker 1: know how to plant things, we know how to engineer
7:54
Speaker 1: this great soil. But there is evidence that they were,
7:58
Speaker 1: you know, domesticating plants back as far as like six
8:01
Speaker 1: thousand BC. And on the same note that there's just
8:05
Speaker 1: so much we thought we knew about the early indigenous
8:09
Speaker 1: peoples of the Amazon that was completely wrong, as it
8:12
Speaker 1: turns out, and one is like how many people were
8:16
Speaker 1: there and how they lived and what they basically kind
8:19
Speaker 1: of come to the conclusion now after you know, a
8:22
Speaker 1: couple of hundred years of thinking otherwise, is when Europeans
8:26
Speaker 1: would encounter like a sort of smallish tribe of disparate people.
8:33
Speaker 1: It wasn't just that they were roaming around the Amazon.
8:36
Speaker 1: It's that they were displaced by those very Europeans, and
8:41
Speaker 1: that at one time there were groups in the Amazon
8:44
Speaker 1: that numbered in the you know, two or three thousands,
8:48
Speaker 1: and that those groups live near enough to each other
8:50
Speaker 1: where they were larger groups of up to like a
8:53
Speaker 1: million people that were like building roads in using sort
8:58
Speaker 1: of rudimentary tools and lanting things and building six story
9:02
Speaker 1: high complex structures. Yeah, there's one particular complex called the Launostemojos.
9:08
Speaker 1: It's about the size of England and it housed about
9:11
Speaker 1: a million people um in I believe the beginning of
9:16
Speaker 1: the last millennium to about the fourteen hundreds, I think,
9:21
Speaker 1: and in particular, there was the Casarabe culture um and
9:25
Speaker 1: they did what was considered low density urbanism, cultivated a
9:31
Speaker 1: letter in there by the way I looked it up,
9:33
Speaker 1: that's correct though, Oh really huh, Solidia left it out. Yeah,
9:37
Speaker 1: I believe so, all right, look at you Casarabe. Finally,
9:41
Speaker 1: my addition of an extra vowe really comes in handy
9:45
Speaker 1: because whether it's correct or not, you know, right, So,
9:49
Speaker 1: but they did they did what you were talking about
9:51
Speaker 1: where they built these structures. They built raised terraces that
9:55
Speaker 1: so that their crop land wasn't affected by regional or
9:59
Speaker 1: seasonal flooding. They connected these villages by raised causeways. They
10:04
Speaker 1: did all this amazing stuff. And then because of probably
10:08
Speaker 1: climate change like we saw in the you know what
10:11
Speaker 1: happened to the Maya civilization episode, we did, they abandoned
10:14
Speaker 1: these structures. And then once the Europeans showed up and
10:17
Speaker 1: introduced smallpox, that was that was it. Like whatever civilizations
10:22
Speaker 1: were left were wiped out, to the tune of potentially
10:25
Speaker 1: ninety percent of the inhabitants of the Amazon were wiped
10:28
Speaker 1: out by smallpox starting in the sixteenth century onward. And
10:33
Speaker 1: then so yeah, when the Spaniards came across these you know,
10:36
Speaker 1: wandering bands of hunter gathers. They just assumed that's what
10:39
Speaker 1: it had always been there, who had always been there.
10:41
Speaker 1: And it turns out that these were essentially refugees from
10:44
Speaker 1: European conquests, smallpox and a climate change essentially, and that
10:50
Speaker 1: they didn't they didn't really resemble the cultures that they
10:53
Speaker 1: had come from at all. Yeah. And not only that,
10:56
Speaker 1: but the Spaniards were writing about these big, interconnected roadways
11:00
Speaker 1: that were maintained and wide and usable between these different villages,
11:07
Speaker 1: and they would write about those and for you know,
11:10
Speaker 1: a couple hundred years, people were just like scholars and
11:12
Speaker 1: researchers were just like, yeah, they clearly mistook it, or
11:16
Speaker 1: that just definitely wasn't going on, and now they're thinking like, oh,
11:19
Speaker 1: those probably were roads. Yeah. I mean, it's one of
11:22
Speaker 1: those amazing reversals of understanding that you rarely find in history,
11:27
Speaker 1: where these stories of legendary last cities actually were true
11:32
Speaker 1: and we're finding them now. It's pretty thrilling, actually, I
11:35
Speaker 1: mean from a historians point of view, not like I
11:39
Speaker 1: don't know, from a computer programmer's point of view. It's
11:42
Speaker 1: so so so that gets us kind of where we
11:46
Speaker 1: are today, which is the Amazon Rainforest is in nine
11:51
Speaker 1: countries in South America. Most of it, sixty percent of
11:55
Speaker 1: it is in Brazil, and then the rest is divided
11:58
Speaker 1: among Bolivia, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Guiana, Suriname, Ecuador, and French Guiana.
12:06
Speaker 1: Right is that right? Yeah? Yeah, I think they just
12:10
Speaker 1: spell it differently because they're lee francaie. Yeah. And that's
12:13
Speaker 1: two million square miles, not acres, my friends, square miles.
12:19
Speaker 1: It's so mind boggling that, like we said, has about
12:23
Speaker 1: ten percent of all known species on planet Earth reside
12:27
Speaker 1: there in thirty percent of terrestrial land walking species. There's
12:31
Speaker 1: a really great stat that seems to be accurate. I
12:35
Speaker 1: don't think it's just one of those copy paste stats.
12:38
Speaker 1: The ants one, Yeah, that on certain bushes in the Amazon,
12:43
Speaker 1: you may find more species of ants on that one
12:45
Speaker 1: bush than you'll find in the entire British Isles. That's
12:49
Speaker 1: how biodiverse this area is. Yeah, that's one of the reasons,
12:53
Speaker 1: like I do want to go visit because it sounds
12:57
Speaker 1: amazing and life changing. But then when I think of
13:00
Speaker 1: and I'm not necessarily afraid of insects or anything, but
13:03
Speaker 1: I think it's so buggy and insecty it's even someone
13:08
Speaker 1: who's not too bothered by it can kind of be
13:10
Speaker 1: pushed over the edge, my friend. The largest spiders in
13:15
Speaker 1: the world are found in the Amazon, in particular, tarantulas
13:19
Speaker 1: that are thirteen inches or about thirty three centimeters across.
13:23
Speaker 1: Can you imagine seeing a tarantula coming at you that's
13:27
Speaker 1: a foot across? I would just be like, just kill
13:31
Speaker 1: me now. I know you can't kill me, but please
13:32
Speaker 1: figure out a way to kill me. Tarantula. Oh, could
13:36
Speaker 1: you know? They're not actually deadly to humans? They're what
13:40
Speaker 1: they're not deadly to humans, they're just terrifying looking. No,
13:44
Speaker 1: they're deadly in that you you die of a cardiac
13:46
Speaker 1: arrest right when one of them sinks their fans into
13:49
Speaker 1: you with there and looks at you with their I
13:50
Speaker 1: don't know what they have, like two hundred eyes at least. Yeah.
13:54
Speaker 1: So um. The life in the Amazon rainforest and in
13:57
Speaker 1: all rainforests, really are divided up vertically, Like there's basically
14:03
Speaker 1: different ecosystems from the tops of the trees down to
14:07
Speaker 1: the forest floors. They're so radically different that just going
14:13
Speaker 1: up and down a single tree you find all this
14:15
Speaker 1: different kind of life, and not only different kinds of life,
14:18
Speaker 1: different climates depending on where you are. If you're at
14:21
Speaker 1: the top of the rainforest and the overstory or the canopy,
14:24
Speaker 1: that's a much different world than it is down at
14:26
Speaker 1: the shrub level. It's pretty interesting. Yeah, I guess we
14:30
Speaker 1: should start at what you said was the overstory or
14:34
Speaker 1: that's also known as the emergent layer, where did Lando
14:37
Speaker 1: Calariesian live sky City or something? Yeah, I can't remember, Okay,
14:44
Speaker 1: that's basically that. Yeah, boy, I'm sorry Star Wars people.
14:48
Speaker 1: I'm a Star Wars guy, but I don't remember all
14:50
Speaker 1: that stuff. I think it was sky City or Skyville, USA,
14:53
Speaker 1: something like that. Yeah, he's like, did you get your
14:59
Speaker 1: T shirt when you've flew in? Ya? Smirnov is playing tonight.
15:04
Speaker 1: So there are we're talking tall, tall trees, a couple
15:07
Speaker 1: of hundred feet tall, sometimes that limbs spreading out one
15:11
Speaker 1: hundred feet wide, blowing and dropping seeds all over the place.
15:16
Speaker 1: Then under that you're gonna have your canopy. Um that
15:19
Speaker 1: is where you have your overlapping tree branches. And this
15:22
Speaker 1: remarkably holds sixty to ninety percent of life in the
15:26
Speaker 1: Amazon nuts in the canopy is crazy. And also I
15:30
Speaker 1: saw that these these branches just appear to overlap, especially
15:34
Speaker 1: from an airplane overhead, But if you actually could walk
15:38
Speaker 1: from tree to tree, you would see that they're None
15:40
Speaker 1: of the trees touch. There's like a few feet different
15:43
Speaker 1: between the trees in the canopy. And it's a mystery.
15:47
Speaker 1: They have no idea exactly why the trees don't grow
15:51
Speaker 1: touching one another. Um. They think that's probably to keep
15:55
Speaker 1: from diseases from spreading or like you know, um, destructive
15:59
Speaker 1: beetles from being able to climb from one tree to another.
16:02
Speaker 1: But they actually don't touch, and they stay about a
16:05
Speaker 1: foot or so a couple feet away from one another
16:08
Speaker 1: on all sides. Isn't that fascinating? Oh? I figured they overlap,
16:12
Speaker 1: meaning they don't touch, but they overlapped vertically. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
16:16
Speaker 1: they'll do that, but they don't actually touch. Oh oh yeah, Okay,
16:20
Speaker 1: they just go I'm not touching you to one another, right, Okay.
16:25
Speaker 1: The canopy, like you said, is a completely different environment.
16:28
Speaker 1: You're gonna have all kinds of fun birds and lizards
16:32
Speaker 1: and slous and monkeys and all kinds of creatures and
16:35
Speaker 1: plants up there. One hundred feet up. Sometimes it's much hotter.
16:40
Speaker 1: You talked about the different climates, much hotter and much
16:43
Speaker 1: dryer during the day, and it's there's a lot of
16:47
Speaker 1: canopy out there, so the visibility is very poor, so
16:50
Speaker 1: there's a lot of noise because they're all chirping at
16:53
Speaker 1: one another. Yeah, and one hundred feet up at the
16:55
Speaker 1: canopy and then you know another one hundred feet at
16:57
Speaker 1: the over story. There's a lot more wind. It's really
17:00
Speaker 1: being blasted by bright sunlight. And that's just again a
17:04
Speaker 1: different world from underneath the canopy, on the shrub layer,
17:07
Speaker 1: the forest floor. It's really humid, that the light is dappled,
17:12
Speaker 1: it's very rarely direct in places, and for that reason,
17:17
Speaker 1: you have like a much steadier kind of climate than
17:20
Speaker 1: you have at the top. And yeah, that's where that
17:24
Speaker 1: decomposition happens really really fast, so that forest soils can't
17:29
Speaker 1: don't hold in nutrients very well. Yeah, and I don't
17:32
Speaker 1: think we mentioned that there is a lot of life
17:34
Speaker 1: in the overstory as well. You're gonna find monkeys up
17:37
Speaker 1: there too. There can be a snake in a tree
17:40
Speaker 1: just live in his life one hundred and eighty feet
17:43
Speaker 1: up in the air, and bats insects, eagles, all kinds
17:48
Speaker 1: of birds. Something else I found, Chuck that I thought
17:50
Speaker 1: was fascinating is that the study of rainforest life is
17:55
Speaker 1: still kind of in its infancy because it's so hard
18:01
Speaker 1: to consistently get to these places to study this life. Yeah,
18:06
Speaker 1: isn't that fascinating? It is apparently good in a way.
18:09
Speaker 1: I saw that Now that drones are here, especially little
18:13
Speaker 1: handheld drones, it's making it much much easier and less destructive,
18:16
Speaker 1: to be honest. Yeah, that's true, So they'll probably advance,
18:20
Speaker 1: but there's still a lot more to be learned in
18:22
Speaker 1: that field. Yeah, I guess we should talk about rain
18:27
Speaker 1: because it's a rainforest and it does rain a lot.
18:30
Speaker 1: Compared to the most rainy state in the United States.
18:35
Speaker 1: Do you know what that is, Texas? It is Mississippi, Mississippi.
18:41
Speaker 1: Atlanta is pretty high up there too. I think Atlanta's
18:43
Speaker 1: top five or six, I believe it. I call it
18:45
Speaker 1: the Seattle of the South Man. Well, this is talking
18:49
Speaker 1: about total rainfall. I think that's them. You know, if
18:52
Speaker 1: you live in the Pacific Northwest, you understand this. But
18:55
Speaker 1: if you just think, like you know, Atlanta, it rains
18:57
Speaker 1: a lot more than in Seattle and Portland, but they
19:00
Speaker 1: have more days of rain, more of those drizzly, sort
19:03
Speaker 1: of dark days, whereas in Mississippi and in Atlanta in
19:06
Speaker 1: the southeast, it's just pouring hard rain to the tune
19:10
Speaker 1: of in Mississippi about five and a half feet a year.
19:12
Speaker 1: In Atlanta we get about four point three feet per year.
19:16
Speaker 1: In the Amazon, they get between six and ten feet
19:19
Speaker 1: of rainfall a year, so up up to double what
19:23
Speaker 1: the rainy t state here gets and most of it
19:25
Speaker 1: fromes to it from December to May alone during the
19:28
Speaker 1: rainy season. Yeah, I mean that's what packed in four
19:32
Speaker 1: or five months. Yeah, it's rainy. Pretty impressive. But I
19:36
Speaker 1: don't know if it's the time to visit or not.
19:39
Speaker 1: But it does not rain much in August that's the
19:41
Speaker 1: driest month, and they only get a couple of inches
19:43
Speaker 1: in August. Yeah, So I say we take a break
19:46
Speaker 1: and then come back and talk to more about the
19:48
Speaker 1: Amazon rainforest. Where do you think let's do it all? Right,
20:13
Speaker 1: we're back. We've talked a lot about animals. We're going
20:17
Speaker 1: to talk more about animals and birds and insects and
20:19
Speaker 1: all that stuff. But there's a lot of people in
20:22
Speaker 1: the Amazon rainforest. And again, like you, I think I
20:26
Speaker 1: sort of pictured it as uh, you know, these largely
20:31
Speaker 1: undisturbed tribes that are still just hunting and gathering and
20:36
Speaker 1: that's all. But that's not true. About thirty four million
20:40
Speaker 1: people live within the ring of the Amazon rainforest. Yeah,
20:45
Speaker 1: that's nuts. There's a whole city, manaus brazil Um has
20:48
Speaker 1: a population of two million in the Amazon Um. And
20:52
Speaker 1: then I think, out of those, um, how many people
20:55
Speaker 1: did you say lived there, between one and a half
21:00
Speaker 1: three are indigenous people who have lived there. These are
21:02
Speaker 1: like their ancestral lands, and a good hundred of the
21:08
Speaker 1: I think three hundred and fifty to five hundred distinct
21:11
Speaker 1: indigenous societies in the Amazon are uncontacted, which, if you'll
21:16
Speaker 1: remember our man in the whole episodes to both of them,
21:19
Speaker 1: I believe. Yeah, I think we did two episodes on them.
21:25
Speaker 1: They uncontacted doesn't mean like they're not aware people exist.
21:29
Speaker 1: They don't want what they don't want to have anything
21:31
Speaker 1: to do with outsiders, usually because of a terrible thing
21:34
Speaker 1: that befell them and or their families. Yeah, it's their thanks,
21:37
Speaker 1: but no thanks tribes exactly. So, I think like thirty
21:41
Speaker 1: five percent of the Amazon right now make up indigenous territories,
21:44
Speaker 1: which is good for the Amazon because, as we mentioned
21:47
Speaker 1: at the outset, one of the things they figured out
21:50
Speaker 1: is the best way to preserve the rainforest is to
21:53
Speaker 1: hand control of it over to the indigenous groups. So
21:56
Speaker 1: you can chuck up about thirty five percent of the
21:58
Speaker 1: Amazon is safe right now. Right. If animals are something
22:04
Speaker 1: you like to talk about, then the Amazon is a
22:06
Speaker 1: pretty great place to be because there are a lot
22:09
Speaker 1: of fauna and megafauna in the rainforest. And one of
22:14
Speaker 1: the starts of the show is certainly the jagyar. Yeah, no,
22:20
Speaker 1: for real, the jaguar. The jaguar. Yeah. If you're buying
22:25
Speaker 1: a car, it's a jaguaw. Yeah, the jaguar. I don't know,
22:28
Speaker 1: I don't know where we got the wire from, but
22:30
Speaker 1: that's what we say, right, Yeah, that's how we say it.
22:33
Speaker 1: And this is just a beautiful, beautiful beast that used
22:37
Speaker 1: to be much more common sadly in the southwestern US,
22:41
Speaker 1: even all the way down to South America in places
22:44
Speaker 1: like Argentina, but about forty percent of their range has
22:47
Speaker 1: been lost yea, in Central and South America, and not
22:51
Speaker 1: over hundreds and hundreds of years. This is in the
22:54
Speaker 1: last like thirty or forty years, and now they are
22:57
Speaker 1: considered near threatened. And these these animals like to move
23:02
Speaker 1: a lot, so they have huge, extensive ranges of hundreds
23:06
Speaker 1: of kilometers, but they just don't have them in such
23:09
Speaker 1: area anymore. Yeah. No, there's about ten thousand of them
23:13
Speaker 1: in the Amazon, which is now their largest contiguous area
23:16
Speaker 1: of habitat. But because the jaguars get so much attention,
23:22
Speaker 1: some of the other ones get ignored unless you start
23:24
Speaker 1: to dig beneath the surface, and when you do, you'll
23:26
Speaker 1: find there's the jaguarundi, the ace a lot, yeah, the Margai,
23:31
Speaker 1: the onsilla, and that last one, the onsilla is a
23:35
Speaker 1: little like five pound cat with a leopard coat that
23:39
Speaker 1: is just adorable standing on a little tree branch. They're
23:43
Speaker 1: all very beautiful, for sure, animals, but they vary in
23:46
Speaker 1: different sizes, shapes, coats, but a lot of them look
23:50
Speaker 1: like like they have a housecat head on, like a
23:53
Speaker 1: mini leopard body or something like that. It's kind of cool.
23:57
Speaker 1: I'm saving my dad jokes from now one. After the
23:59
Speaker 1: b incident, by the way, oh no, I think everybody's
24:02
Speaker 1: been been pretty much in favor that it was definitely
24:05
Speaker 1: worth while. Oh. I've had a couple of yeas and
24:08
Speaker 1: a couple of nays so far. My point that I
24:12
Speaker 1: made to one of them was like, if I wrote
24:13
Speaker 1: that joke down and told it, it's probably pretty terrible,
24:15
Speaker 1: but it was off the dome. Yeah, I thought it
24:18
Speaker 1: was great. I still, like, I wake up laughing thinking
24:21
Speaker 1: about it almost every morning, So I won't make jokes
24:24
Speaker 1: about acelots and auclttles. I'm not gonna do it anymore.
24:28
Speaker 1: I think that's a good good choice in this kid.
24:31
Speaker 1: There's also monkeys, Oh, lots of monkeys, one hundred and
24:34
Speaker 1: fifty plus species of monkey, everything you could imagine. I
24:39
Speaker 1: love how Olivia put this one. The nightmarish looking bald.
24:43
Speaker 1: I guess that's you a cary monkey. Yeah, you need
24:46
Speaker 1: to look that one up. It's oh I did it
24:49
Speaker 1: looks like the the It looks like this sounds awful
24:54
Speaker 1: to say. It looks like a monkey who had his
24:58
Speaker 1: face peeled off. Wow. Yeah, it does look like that
25:01
Speaker 1: a lot. It's just a very bright red. It looks
25:05
Speaker 1: like it a wound almost, Yeah, or like it has
25:08
Speaker 1: an angry, angry sunburn on its face. Only Yeah, it's
25:12
Speaker 1: really neat looking, it's a cool monkey. There's also squirrel monkeys,
25:16
Speaker 1: which are basically what you would think. They're very tiny,
25:19
Speaker 1: but they're considered large brained if you put any stock
25:23
Speaker 1: in brain to body ratio, because they have large brains
25:25
Speaker 1: considering how small they are, and they live in massive
25:28
Speaker 1: groups of up to three hundred. And I looked up
25:32
Speaker 1: I was looking at them and somebody asked on Google
25:34
Speaker 1: or squirrel monkeys good pets? And the answer to that
25:37
Speaker 1: is a thousand times no, oh really yeah, because they
25:40
Speaker 1: have to have constant stimulation, so you have to pay
25:45
Speaker 1: attention to them, basically constantly, and if you don't pay
25:47
Speaker 1: attention to them, they will just start messing stuff up
25:51
Speaker 1: all over the place and making your life miserable. So
25:54
Speaker 1: my advice to you is, no, you don't want to
25:57
Speaker 1: squirrel monkey as a pet. Ahead not looked that up
25:59
Speaker 1: until just now, And I get white people want them
26:01
Speaker 1: as beets. Yeah, are cute, They're very cute, and they're
26:04
Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of fun to hang out with,
26:06
Speaker 1: but maybe just in the jungle. You know, if you
26:10
Speaker 1: don't pay them enough attention, they'll peel their face off
26:12
Speaker 1: and become bald ukari. So these monkeys are very valuable
26:17
Speaker 1: to the ecosystem, though they are not just for looks
26:21
Speaker 1: and being cute and making fun noises and like being
26:23
Speaker 1: cheeky and stealing food off your plate. They play very
26:27
Speaker 1: key roles. They they're up there chowing down on leaves
26:31
Speaker 1: and they're gonna be pooping that stuff out. They're gonna
26:33
Speaker 1: be spreading seed. That's gonna you know, the trees are
26:37
Speaker 1: gonna be more productive because they're gonna be like, something's
26:39
Speaker 1: eating me. I need to grow more, and that's gonna
26:42
Speaker 1: you know, we always talk about the domino effect in
26:44
Speaker 1: these ecosystems. Then there are more insects that are feeding
26:48
Speaker 1: on these little leaves. That means more birds are gonna
26:51
Speaker 1: be eating the insects, and it just goes down the
26:53
Speaker 1: chain and it's good for everybody. Yep. They also eat
26:57
Speaker 1: seeds or fruits and then poop the seeds out with
27:00
Speaker 1: plants more trees, and they benefit humans by sampling dates
27:04
Speaker 1: to find out if they're bad and poisonous. First, I
27:08
Speaker 1: told you we just watched that recently and that that
27:10
Speaker 1: scene was tough. The only solace and was that it
27:14
Speaker 1: was a nazy monkey. Yeah, and even my daughter at
27:17
Speaker 1: seven and a half was like, yeah, that monkey was
27:20
Speaker 1: no good. Speaking of movies, so I saw that on
27:24
Speaker 1: the plane on the way out, and then on the
27:26
Speaker 1: way back saw Raiders. You watched it, Yeah, I watched
27:28
Speaker 1: like the third or half or something like that. Yeah,
27:30
Speaker 1: that's good comfort food. And then on the way back
27:34
Speaker 1: I watched everything everywhere all at once for the first time. Yeah,
27:39
Speaker 1: that is one of the most magnificent movies I've ever
27:42
Speaker 1: seen in my life. Man, Oh, I hate did you
27:44
Speaker 1: have to see it on an airplane? It was fine.
27:46
Speaker 1: I was you know, like I had something in my
27:48
Speaker 1: eye for like the last third of it, and like
27:51
Speaker 1: it was that was gosh. Anybody who has not seen
27:54
Speaker 1: that movie, see that movie and just make sure you're
27:57
Speaker 1: wide open for it. Oh boy, it was great. A
28:00
Speaker 1: sawt in the theater the Yeah, and never got used
28:03
Speaker 1: to the hot dog fingers. I thought that was so great.
28:07
Speaker 1: Spoiler alert they're hot dog fingers. What else did they
28:12
Speaker 1: have out there? They have the pink river dolphin, the botos,
28:16
Speaker 1: which is pretty amazing. They swim up in those flooded
28:18
Speaker 1: forests and tributaries. Yeah. I just thought that was so cool, Chuck,
28:22
Speaker 1: that they had um that they swam in the forests. Yeah,
28:26
Speaker 1: that's just amazingly cool. Yeah, you got your eyes out
28:29
Speaker 1: for the jagyar and you're like, look out for that dolphin, right,
28:33
Speaker 1: the pink one coming at you. Yeah, and they're pinkish,
28:37
Speaker 1: Like I was expecting more pink than I got when
28:41
Speaker 1: I looked them up. But yeah, they're pinkish. And it
28:44
Speaker 1: looks like they're they're little snouts are way way longer, right, Uh, yeah,
28:49
Speaker 1: they do look a little they needed to burrow past
28:52
Speaker 1: all the stumps in the flooded forests. And if you
28:55
Speaker 1: want color, my friend, forget the pink river dolphins. And
29:00
Speaker 1: because your attention on poisoned dart frogs, there's and stay
29:03
Speaker 1: away dozen. Yeah, I don't get close. Just like at pictures,
29:06
Speaker 1: there's dozens and dozens of species of them, and they
29:09
Speaker 1: are so beautiful. There's just like the different colors and
29:14
Speaker 1: how vibrant they are and like, how is that not
29:17
Speaker 1: glow in the dark paint? It just it's just mind boggling.
29:20
Speaker 1: But ironically, the m so they're called poison dart frogs
29:24
Speaker 1: because the tribes have used their their toxins that they
29:28
Speaker 1: naturally secrete for blow dart hunting, right, that's where they
29:31
Speaker 1: get their name. But ironically, the least colorful of them all,
29:36
Speaker 1: the golden poisoned dart frog, is the deadliest. They have
29:40
Speaker 1: enough toxin in them to kill ten people. This tiny
29:43
Speaker 1: little frog does, so steer clear of the golden poisoned
29:48
Speaker 1: dart frog. If there's one lesson in this episode, it's
29:52
Speaker 1: that we won't get too detailed. But there are all
29:56
Speaker 1: kinds of rodents, There are all kinds of terrestrial mammals
30:00
Speaker 1: roaming the ground. The birds just forget about it. I mean,
30:05
Speaker 1: you want to go see a two can up in
30:07
Speaker 1: a tree or a macaw, that's where you're going to
30:09
Speaker 1: find them. And that's I think would be one of
30:12
Speaker 1: the kind of coolest parts for me is looking up
30:15
Speaker 1: and seeing those birds that you've seen in like cartoons
30:19
Speaker 1: and they're real and they're just flying wild. Yeah, flying past.
30:23
Speaker 1: You're going just follow my nose. You got electric eels,
30:28
Speaker 1: you got tarantulas, you got piranhas and snakes. All kinds
30:31
Speaker 1: of things also want to kill you. In the Amazon. Yeah.
30:34
Speaker 1: The bullet ant, which is the insect with the most
30:37
Speaker 1: most painful sting of any living thing in the world,
30:40
Speaker 1: lives in the Amazon. Yeah. Thank you, and I came
30:44
Speaker 1: across one more thing about animals. I came across another
30:47
Speaker 1: word that is kind of like masked that I love brows,
30:52
Speaker 1: just like just like you browsed through a book. Brows
30:55
Speaker 1: is a word for the leaves and twigs of trees
30:57
Speaker 1: and shrubs the animals eat. I like that, you got brows,
31:00
Speaker 1: you got masked. Put it together. You got a dinner
31:04
Speaker 1: for a tapier. What's a tapier? Well, go ahead and
31:09
Speaker 1: say so. It's it looks like it's um, it looks
31:12
Speaker 1: like a pig with a short elephant trunk, but it's
31:15
Speaker 1: more related to horses and rhinocerii. Yeah. I think we
31:19
Speaker 1: should do with something on Piranha at some point. Maybe
31:22
Speaker 1: it's Shorty the movie. Well we'd have to mention it, sure,
31:27
Speaker 1: but yeah, because I think Paranha misunderstood, and you know,
31:32
Speaker 1: growing up in the seventies and eighties, probably because of
31:34
Speaker 1: that movie. Like I think there was the notion that
31:37
Speaker 1: it's like playground stuff that you hear, like if you
31:40
Speaker 1: fall in a pool of Piranhas, then you know you'll
31:42
Speaker 1: be bones in five minutes and that kind of thing.
31:45
Speaker 1: And I don't think that's true because I always kind
31:48
Speaker 1: of had that notion, and then when you would see
31:50
Speaker 1: people in the rivers of the Amazon where there are piranha,
31:55
Speaker 1: I would just be like, what are you doing? You're
31:57
Speaker 1: about to be bones from the waist down, and that's
32:01
Speaker 1: just not the case. I think the coolest creepiest thing
32:03
Speaker 1: about the piranha is when you go to an aquarium
32:06
Speaker 1: and you see them and they're not moving. You're used
32:10
Speaker 1: to fish swimming around, and those piranha are just motionless
32:13
Speaker 1: in water. I've never noticed that before. While yeah, it's
32:17
Speaker 1: very unless those weren't real piranha, just wax perranha. Are
32:21
Speaker 1: they on the string? Yep? No, I think I think
32:24
Speaker 1: they We'll have to get into that, but I know
32:26
Speaker 1: I've seen motionless piranha. There's one other thing to steer
32:29
Speaker 1: clear of, and that's the candy u, which is a
32:31
Speaker 1: parasitic catfish that is found in the Amazon River and
32:35
Speaker 1: if you're not careful it, we'll swim up your urethra. Oh.
32:39
Speaker 1: We talked about that and something we should talk about
32:42
Speaker 1: that in every episode, just to make sure that never
32:44
Speaker 1: happens to the stuff you should know a listener, Yeah, wow, okay, yeah,
32:49
Speaker 1: Verona can and motionless for hours. I just had to
32:52
Speaker 1: confirm that it wasn't crazy. Very nice, You're not crazy.
32:54
Speaker 1: I could have told you that you want to take
32:56
Speaker 1: a break. Yeah, let's take our last break and we'll
32:58
Speaker 1: talk about well, other great things you can find there
33:02
Speaker 1: and how humans are destroying those things. So, Chuck, we
33:28
Speaker 1: talked about how biodiverse the Amazon is, and that in
33:32
Speaker 1: and of itself is worth preserving. Just the fact that
33:35
Speaker 1: there's that many animals and that many different animals, and
33:38
Speaker 1: I think what four hundred billion trees was the estimate.
33:43
Speaker 1: Just that there's all that life that lives there, it
33:45
Speaker 1: makes it automatically worth protecting. But just within biodiversity, there's
33:51
Speaker 1: there's even more reason to protect that life. Because when
33:55
Speaker 1: you take all those different animals and all those different
33:58
Speaker 1: trees and you put them together on this one type
34:00
Speaker 1: of geography and topography with this these different types of climate,
34:05
Speaker 1: you put it all together, you have a very unique
34:06
Speaker 1: biome that produces all sorts of ecological services that humans
34:10
Speaker 1: benefit from, like drinking water, purification, decomposition of waste, getting
34:17
Speaker 1: rid of parasites and disease. All these different amazing things
34:23
Speaker 1: that the Amazon does comes from the biodiversity. All the
34:26
Speaker 1: interactions of all these different types of animals that have
34:30
Speaker 1: evolved to fill these different ecological niches in this in
34:33
Speaker 1: these ecosystems, and it produces all these benefits from us.
34:37
Speaker 1: So there's number two, and the list just keeps going
34:39
Speaker 1: from there. Yeah, I mean medicines that we use a
34:43
Speaker 1: lot of these have come from the Amazon, and that's
34:45
Speaker 1: what that Sean Connery movie was about, is you know,
34:48
Speaker 1: is the cure for cancer somewhere in some jungle waiting
34:52
Speaker 1: to be discovered. Uh, you know you've heard of ACE inhibitors.
34:56
Speaker 1: ACE inhibitors which can help control hypertension that come from
35:00
Speaker 1: studies at the venom of the fair de lance snake
35:05
Speaker 1: led to the development of that. So that's just one
35:07
Speaker 1: example of the many medicines that we've derived and synthesized
35:11
Speaker 1: from the region. Did I say region? I'm getting very
35:16
Speaker 1: fancy and other things we can learn. Olivia pointed out
35:19
Speaker 1: another cool example of something that we haven't figured out yet,
35:23
Speaker 1: but the leaf cutting ant, which I think we talked
35:26
Speaker 1: about in the Ants episode. They avoid leaves with that
35:31
Speaker 1: are naturally anti fungal, and so when they're harvesting this
35:35
Speaker 1: vegetation for their fungus, farms. They know to stay away
35:37
Speaker 1: from those. We don't quite get how they do it,
35:40
Speaker 1: but we might could study them and learn that and
35:43
Speaker 1: maybe even learn how to control fungal growth where we
35:46
Speaker 1: need it. Yeah, it's going to be a future treatment
35:48
Speaker 1: for athletes foot just around the corner maybe. And you'll
35:52
Speaker 1: notice everybody like you might be waiting for us to
35:55
Speaker 1: be like And it's the reason we can all breathe
35:57
Speaker 1: thanks to all the oxygen. It actually is not true. Yes,
36:01
Speaker 1: the Amazon puts out a lot of oxygen forest, that's great,
36:04
Speaker 1: but the reason we are all here on Earth breathing
36:08
Speaker 1: is because of ocean algae. Yeah, that's really who we
36:12
Speaker 1: have to thank. That's not to downplay the role of
36:15
Speaker 1: the Amazon rainforest. One of the things that definitely has
36:20
Speaker 1: a huge impact on is the water cycle, and that
36:25
Speaker 1: the Amazon actually produces its own weather and then recycles
36:29
Speaker 1: it five six times and then sends it along off
36:32
Speaker 1: to different parts of the world. And every single day,
36:36
Speaker 1: through transpiration of all the plants in the Amazon rainforest,
36:41
Speaker 1: twenty billion tons of water vapor are released every single day.
36:46
Speaker 1: That's definitely significant. Yeah, it affects rain as far as
36:50
Speaker 1: the Midwest of the United States. And all the way
36:53
Speaker 1: down as south as Argentina apparently. Yeah. The big sort
36:58
Speaker 1: of benefit and now concern of the Amazon though, which
37:03
Speaker 1: is what has been on the radar of humans for
37:06
Speaker 1: a while, and there's been a lot of awareness in
37:08
Speaker 1: the past few decades around it, is that it's a
37:12
Speaker 1: carbon sink, really really important carbon sink for planet Earth,
37:16
Speaker 1: to the tune of about one hundred and twenty three
37:19
Speaker 1: billion tons of carbon and just buried in the ground there. Yeah,
37:26
Speaker 1: which is great and valuable. But the problem is is
37:29
Speaker 1: what's been going on since the late nineteen seventies, which
37:34
Speaker 1: is burning hundreds of thousands of square miles of the
37:38
Speaker 1: rainforest and releasing all of that carbon into the air. Yeah,
37:42
Speaker 1: because not only is it in the ground, it's locked
37:45
Speaker 1: into the wood of living trees, but when those trees
37:48
Speaker 1: aren't living anymore, and in particular when they burn, all
37:51
Speaker 1: that carbon gets released all at once. Where like if
37:54
Speaker 1: a tree falls over in the woods, whether there's somebody
37:57
Speaker 1: there to hear it or not, doesn't matter. As it decomposed,
38:00
Speaker 1: is it slowly releases carbon. If you burn a tree,
38:03
Speaker 1: it releases a ton of carbon all at once. And
38:05
Speaker 1: if you burn a huge swath of trees. That's a
38:08
Speaker 1: big carbon release. And yes, the Amazon has been burning, burning,
38:11
Speaker 1: burning since the seventies, largely to make way for agriculture
38:17
Speaker 1: in the most for the most part, cattle grazing. They're
38:20
Speaker 1: burning down the Amazon to make pastures for cattle for
38:24
Speaker 1: the most part. And as a result, they're actually concerned
38:29
Speaker 1: that if it hasn't happened already, that in the not
38:33
Speaker 1: too distant future, the Amazon will transfer from being a
38:37
Speaker 1: net absorber of carbon carbon sink to a carbon emitter,
38:42
Speaker 1: a net emitter of carbon where it will put out
38:44
Speaker 1: more carbon than it holds in, which is terrible. You
38:49
Speaker 1: don't want your the world's largest carbon sink aside from
38:52
Speaker 1: the ocean, the world's largest land based carbon sink. How
38:55
Speaker 1: about that to turn into a net emitter. That would
38:59
Speaker 1: be a bad And all is basically driven by fire
39:03
Speaker 1: in one way or another. Yeah, but you know it's
39:07
Speaker 1: because of climate change. Even where there haven't been these fires,
39:12
Speaker 1: I think, like the southeastern part of the forest hasn't
39:15
Speaker 1: been as burned down yet, but they have also become
39:19
Speaker 1: a net emitter because trees there are dying. They're dying
39:23
Speaker 1: too fast. They're dying faster than they can grow, and
39:27
Speaker 1: a lot of it is because of the warming climate, hotter,
39:30
Speaker 1: drier conditions on average, and then the level of rising
39:34
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide in the air. So more CO two is
39:38
Speaker 1: gonna make a tree grow faster, which is good in
39:40
Speaker 1: a way, but faster growing trees die younger, and like
39:43
Speaker 1: you said, they die, they decompose and then release that
39:46
Speaker 1: carbon again. So it's the cycle where it's sort of
39:49
Speaker 1: feeding itself almost right in the wrong direction. Yeah, it's
39:53
Speaker 1: definitely the wrong direction. Another part of the problem too,
39:57
Speaker 1: is that will affect that that water they and all
40:00
Speaker 1: of the weather that it impacts, and it will also
40:04
Speaker 1: make the Amazon less rainy because as more and more
40:07
Speaker 1: portions of the forest become deforested, that rain that is
40:13
Speaker 1: that hits the canopy and the overstory and then trickles
40:16
Speaker 1: down slowly to the understory and the shrub layer, and
40:19
Speaker 1: then the forest flooring gets like basically trapped in the
40:22
Speaker 1: forest floor and becomes that nice humidity that keeps the
40:25
Speaker 1: whole thing going and keeps the plants flourishing. That rain
40:29
Speaker 1: just runs off into the river and it doesn't get
40:32
Speaker 1: locked into the soil, so that just leads to further
40:35
Speaker 1: and further deforestation and then the up I guess the
40:39
Speaker 1: result of it. Nope, I'm not gonna say that the
40:42
Speaker 1: result of all of this is that these forest lands
40:45
Speaker 1: turn into grasslands savannahs, and that's just not nearly as
40:49
Speaker 1: big of a carbon sink. That's not Again, that's not
40:54
Speaker 1: what we want the Amazon rainforest to be. Even just
40:57
Speaker 1: for the fact that you don't want to lose the Amazon,
41:00
Speaker 1: that's enough to do something about this. Let alone, all
41:03
Speaker 1: of the sub details that make the Amazon what it
41:06
Speaker 1: isn't make it valuable for all these different reasons. Yeah.
41:09
Speaker 1: So if you're out there and you're saying so, that's
41:13
Speaker 1: what Don Henley's been going on about. That's what Don
41:16
Speaker 1: Henley's been going on about for all these years and
41:18
Speaker 1: a lot of other people. And when it comes to
41:21
Speaker 1: taking action like that, I'm glad people like Don Henley
41:25
Speaker 1: or raising awareness and literally doing like feed on the
41:29
Speaker 1: groundwork and raising money when he's not suing people. But
41:33
Speaker 1: the government is where it really comes into play, and
41:36
Speaker 1: wealthy nations chipping in is where it comes into play.
41:38
Speaker 1: Because for about the last twenties years or so, governments
41:43
Speaker 1: in South America have tried to curb deforestation here and
41:48
Speaker 1: there and have done a decent job. Some people say
41:52
Speaker 1: it's too little, too late. It's obviously never too late
41:54
Speaker 1: to try. But again, if we've passed that tipping point,
41:58
Speaker 1: then it literally may be too late in the long run.
42:02
Speaker 1: But Brazil, where like we said, sixty percent of the
42:04
Speaker 1: forest is, they're going to be a big contributor one
42:07
Speaker 1: way or the other. And it's sadly driven by politics.
42:11
Speaker 1: So it hit a six year high deforestation just last
42:15
Speaker 1: year in twenty twenty two, and that was the end
42:17
Speaker 1: of a three year period where the conservative president how
42:22
Speaker 1: do you pronounce his first name is that, Tyre Gayer Bolsonaro,
42:28
Speaker 1: was saying, yeah, we need money, and the way to
42:30
Speaker 1: do that is to cut down then burn these forests.
42:33
Speaker 1: And before that we had a drop in deforestation in
42:36
Speaker 1: a pretty big way under the leftist president Louise in
42:40
Speaker 1: a great name an Assio Lula da Silva. And this
42:45
Speaker 1: is from two thousand and three to two eleven, and
42:48
Speaker 1: he's back in power now. I think he's the only
42:51
Speaker 1: Brazilian president to be elected three times, is what I read?
42:53
Speaker 1: Oh is that right? I thought this was just a
42:55
Speaker 1: second but yeah, I guess he was too term. And
42:57
Speaker 1: now this is his third term. Huh yeah, so he's
43:00
Speaker 1: back and he's saying, hey, we got to reverse these
43:03
Speaker 1: policies and protect these lands. If you look at charts
43:06
Speaker 1: of UM deforestation under different presidents, when when Lula came in,
43:11
Speaker 1: that's what he's affectionately called in Brazil, it just drops deforestation,
43:16
Speaker 1: just drops off precipitously. Um I saw I was down
43:19
Speaker 1: by like two thirds, I believe during his administration. And
43:22
Speaker 1: so not only did he institute protection further rainforest, Brazil's
43:26
Speaker 1: long had plenty of laws against things like illegal mining, UM,
43:30
Speaker 1: illegal agriculture, protections for indigenous land that they just weren't enforcing,
43:36
Speaker 1: and they definitely stopped enforcing when Balcinaro came into power.
43:40
Speaker 1: UM that that all they have to do is start
43:43
Speaker 1: enforcing some of these and that will just have enormous effects.
43:47
Speaker 1: But in addition to that, they're also like okay, like
43:50
Speaker 1: there are reasons people engage in illegal mining. There are
43:54
Speaker 1: reasons people UM use like like forest fires to drive
44:00
Speaker 1: indigenous people off their land because this land is valuable
44:04
Speaker 1: for people who are in some places in times desperate
44:08
Speaker 1: for money to feed themselves in their family. It's not
44:11
Speaker 1: totally under ununderstandable, especially on a more local level when
44:17
Speaker 1: you get into like large politics, it's all just discussed
44:20
Speaker 1: and greed. It's the definition of greed of demolishing a
44:22
Speaker 1: global good for personal gain. I don't believe that that
44:26
Speaker 1: also translates to the local level where you're trying to
44:28
Speaker 1: feed your family, right sure, but what you can't do
44:32
Speaker 1: as a wealthy nation is just say you get guys,
44:34
Speaker 1: need to change what you're doing, right without chipping in
44:37
Speaker 1: and helping some right. Right. So there's a couple of
44:39
Speaker 1: ways to do this, and one that I believe Brazil
44:41
Speaker 1: is really interested in internally is figuring out how to
44:47
Speaker 1: exploit the Amazon without her army in the Amazon, right
44:53
Speaker 1: without doing exploiting it in a sustainable way. Now exploiting
44:56
Speaker 1: like taking it's the wealth of nature from it, like
45:00
Speaker 1: and nuts and fruits, and getting into ecotourism that isn't
45:04
Speaker 1: actually harmful. That's a big way to kind of say, hey,
45:09
Speaker 1: you don't have to do this illegal mining anymore. Here's
45:12
Speaker 1: some other stuff we can do, and you're going to
45:13
Speaker 1: make even more money to be able to sustain in
45:15
Speaker 1: your family and the forest will continue to thrive. The
45:19
Speaker 1: other way is like you said going to wealthy nations,
45:21
Speaker 1: being like, hey, this is a global common good. You
45:25
Speaker 1: guys think that it should be around that the biodiversity
45:28
Speaker 1: alone means that it should be protected. Well, then chip in.
45:31
Speaker 1: If this is like belongs to all of humanity, why
45:34
Speaker 1: should we be the only ones who have to suffer
45:36
Speaker 1: to preserve it, Because there's a lot of stuff they
45:39
Speaker 1: could extract, like oil in the Amazon that they're saying,
45:43
Speaker 1: pay us not to do that, Like, we could use
45:46
Speaker 1: that and to keep up and pay off the debts
45:47
Speaker 1: that we owe you guys, so pay us to leave
45:51
Speaker 1: it there, and then the Amazon gets preserved and then
45:53
Speaker 1: we don't have to we don't have to extract this
45:56
Speaker 1: oil to support ourselves. Yeah, and oftentimes set payment, you know.
46:00
Speaker 1: Kind of mentioned it is in the form of debt forgiveness,
46:03
Speaker 1: and there's been a big push in the past, I
46:06
Speaker 1: feel like fifteen to twenty years for wealthier countries to
46:10
Speaker 1: forgive the debt of poorer countries. And I think Bono
46:15
Speaker 1: is big into this cause, but I think more in Africa. Yea,
46:19
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, I don't remember, but I feel
46:21
Speaker 1: like he's tried to raise awareness for that and kind
46:23
Speaker 1: of pushed for debt forgiveness, and if some of these
46:27
Speaker 1: people like Brazil and Ecuador and Columbia had debt forgiveness,
46:31
Speaker 1: they may not be doing the mining and the oil drilling,
46:34
Speaker 1: although the cynic in me says that someone would come
46:37
Speaker 1: along and try and just exploit it for the riches
46:39
Speaker 1: of it, not necessarily to pay the debts. But one
46:43
Speaker 1: thing we have found that works, like we mentioned at
46:45
Speaker 1: the very beginning, and we're coming full circle here, is
46:49
Speaker 1: that what they have squarely found is that returning control
46:54
Speaker 1: of this land to the indigenous cultures, there is seen
47:00
Speaker 1: a massive, i think a two thirds decrease in deforestation
47:04
Speaker 1: in areas where indigenous people have full ownership rights. So
47:08
Speaker 1: there's your answer right there is give it back to
47:10
Speaker 1: them and say how would you like to treat this land?
47:14
Speaker 1: Probably how you always wanted it treated, right, But also
47:18
Speaker 1: that means so that that's saying you're protecting that by
47:23
Speaker 1: giving it back, by saying like this is protected area,
47:25
Speaker 1: this is indigenous territory, you can exploit it. But that
47:29
Speaker 1: still leaves the problem of the non indigenous people who
47:32
Speaker 1: are trying to make a living out of it. And
47:33
Speaker 1: again you come into the wealthier countries and say why
47:38
Speaker 1: don't you guys chip in and actually chuck. There's been
47:41
Speaker 1: studies of people like households in North America. Norway is
47:45
Speaker 1: really big on it, and I believe the UK of
47:50
Speaker 1: what's called willingness to pay WTP among distant beneficiaries. It's
47:54
Speaker 1: people like you and me who are probably never going
47:56
Speaker 1: to set foot in the Amazon, but we still want
47:58
Speaker 1: the Amazon to be round. And I've seen as much
48:02
Speaker 1: as Norway households are willing to pay as much as
48:05
Speaker 1: one hundred euros per year to keep the Amazon intact
48:10
Speaker 1: as it is now. In the United States, we've been
48:13
Speaker 1: shown to be willing to pay as much as five
48:16
Speaker 1: dollars for every percentage of forest lost avoided. So if
48:21
Speaker 1: they can predict how much would be lost and you say,
48:24
Speaker 1: well this is going to say fifteen percent, the average
48:26
Speaker 1: American household be willing to pay five dollars per percent
48:29
Speaker 1: for that fifteen percent, and that the most agreed upon
48:32
Speaker 1: way of doing this is to say, how about let's
48:35
Speaker 1: let's make this happen, and then we're just going to
48:37
Speaker 1: make it a special tax that you pay when you
48:39
Speaker 1: pay your income tax every year, and each household pays
48:42
Speaker 1: fifty sixty bucks. And when you start to put that
48:44
Speaker 1: together among all households in America and then households in
48:48
Speaker 1: other Western nations, you suddenly have a really giant fund
48:52
Speaker 1: to preserve the Amazon. Yeah. Pretty neat. And you know,
48:57
Speaker 1: if you're looking for charities, I have not vetted all
49:00
Speaker 1: of these, but just a cursory search. And I do
49:04
Speaker 1: recommend anytime you're giving to charities, vet them and do
49:07
Speaker 1: your due diligence and check them out and all that
49:09
Speaker 1: good stuff. But just cursory search. There are a list
49:14
Speaker 1: of you know, best charities for protecting the rainforest, like
49:18
Speaker 1: the Rainforest Trust, Amazon Conservation, Cool Earth, Rainforest Foundation, Rainforest
49:25
Speaker 1: Action Network, Amazon Watch. There are all kinds of them
49:28
Speaker 1: out there. I don't know which one Don Henley's. Oh
49:31
Speaker 1: here it is the Hotel California Fund. No, No, I'm kidding, Okay,
49:39
Speaker 1: I got you. Yeah, I'm surprised. All right, what is
49:44
Speaker 1: the name of his? I don't know. Okay, can we
49:47
Speaker 1: look it up? No, as long as it's not that,
49:49
Speaker 1: that's fine. I'm sure you can. Don Henley Amazon Fund. Yeah,
49:53
Speaker 1: you got anything else? I got nothing else? Well, Um,
49:58
Speaker 1: I thought this is a pretty good episode. I would
50:01
Speaker 1: say it's a throwback episode to like the eighties, like
50:03
Speaker 1: Save the Amazon, but it's pretty much been ongoing ever
50:06
Speaker 1: since then. Huh. Yeah, Well, if you want to know
50:09
Speaker 1: more about preserving the Amazon, just start looking around to
50:12
Speaker 1: find out how you can help, and I'm sure you'll
50:13
Speaker 1: find all sorts of cool ways. And god speed to
50:16
Speaker 1: you for doing that. And since I said that, it's
50:18
Speaker 1: time for listener mail, I'm gonna call this hot off
50:23
Speaker 1: the presses another Delirian. And by the way, you know
50:26
Speaker 1: I asked for I'm sure you'd notice in the emails.
50:28
Speaker 1: I asked for calls for people to let me take
50:31
Speaker 1: a ride in one or drive one. And it turns
50:33
Speaker 1: out we have a lot of stuff you should know,
50:34
Speaker 1: listeners that own Delirians. Yeah, who knew? Yeah, I mean
50:38
Speaker 1: I don't know by a lot, but I feel like
50:40
Speaker 1: we got a dozen or so emails at least from
50:43
Speaker 1: people in different places say, Chuck, you're on when you
50:46
Speaker 1: want to do it? I know it's pretty cool. So
50:49
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm gonna save all those and then I
50:50
Speaker 1: know those one in Boston, a couple of Canada. Are
50:54
Speaker 1: you going to do them all? Yeah? That should do
50:57
Speaker 1: them all. Hush, to drive all the Delirians. Yeah, just
51:00
Speaker 1: a big road trip. No. I'm going to figure it
51:02
Speaker 1: out though and meet up with somebody. Okay, but I'm
51:05
Speaker 1: going to call this another Delirian email. Loved the Delirian EPP.
51:10
Speaker 1: I actually owned one, learned a few fun things about
51:12
Speaker 1: it that I thought you might be interested in. When
51:15
Speaker 1: I was younger, my grandmother left my siblings and me
51:17
Speaker 1: money specifically for our first cars. A serendipitous amount of
51:21
Speaker 1: time later, I saw one for sale on the side
51:24
Speaker 1: of the road. A collector of World War two cars
51:27
Speaker 1: was thinning out his car collection, and of course I
51:31
Speaker 1: wanted it as a sound financial investment for a pre
51:34
Speaker 1: driver's licensed team. I was fourteen. I can't believe this first,
51:39
Speaker 1: and bought a Delirian at fourteen. I bought a moped
51:43
Speaker 1: at twelve months, but tails in comparison to event the
51:47
Speaker 1: kind that you was a bicycle as well like a
51:50
Speaker 1: true mop ed. Yeah. It also didn't work. Yeah, they
51:53
Speaker 1: never do as a sound financial investment for a pre
51:56
Speaker 1: driver's licensed team. My mother agreed to spot the rest
52:00
Speaker 1: the sixteen thousand, five hundred as soon as we could.
52:04
Speaker 1: We got a McFly vanity plate for it. My sister
52:07
Speaker 1: drove us around town for a joy ride. I love
52:10
Speaker 1: this person, pre bought a car before they could even drive. Yeah,
52:13
Speaker 1: a Delirian no less. Yeah. We went through a Chick
52:17
Speaker 1: fil A drive through and ultimately couldn't get our order
52:19
Speaker 1: through the very tiny window, so we had to back
52:21
Speaker 1: up and drive back in with enough allowance to fully
52:23
Speaker 1: open the gull wings as the whole staff look through
52:25
Speaker 1: the window at us. Nice. I would just sit in
52:28
Speaker 1: this lazy boy level comfortable, almost horizontal seat of my
52:32
Speaker 1: stainless steel paper weight. And here's a few fun facts.
52:36
Speaker 1: There's a sign behind the seats that says this vehicle
52:39
Speaker 1: is negative Earth hates Earth. Still have no idea what
52:44
Speaker 1: that means? Is what Kat says. There's a one foot
52:47
Speaker 1: by one foot by one foot ish safe that the
52:51
Speaker 1: Delirian key opens, hidden directly behind the driver's seat. Oh wow, man,
52:54
Speaker 1: I had no idea about any of this. Didn't know
52:57
Speaker 1: this either. And there was a red button on the
53:00
Speaker 1: center console. I don't remember what it was supposed to
53:02
Speaker 1: do because it didn't work. It was just an unlabeled
53:05
Speaker 1: red round push button. Wow. Just daring you too, Oh man.
53:10
Speaker 1: I always wanted to put a little Acme Co sticker,
53:13
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, a glass case and a tiny a tiny
53:16
Speaker 1: hammer around it, you know, for emergencies. So that is
53:19
Speaker 1: from Kat Chaffin And that's a great email. Cat. This
53:23
Speaker 1: may be the best Delirian email we got, hands down.
53:26
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody else's Delirian email is pretty great, but
53:29
Speaker 1: this was no on top. This way to go, Kat,
53:31
Speaker 1: that's an amazing story. Thanks for all the extra info
53:34
Speaker 1: about the Delirian too. I didn't know about that safe.
53:37
Speaker 1: I'm sure there was never cocaine in those saves. Never.
53:42
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with this, like
53:44
Speaker 1: Kat did, you can write us an email too. Send
53:47
Speaker 1: it to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff you
53:54
Speaker 1: Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
53:58
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the IHEARTRADI you up Apple Podcasts
54:01
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