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Confirmation Bias
Recently, a good pal sent me a link to a video where a woman explains the linear path of mass consumption via some pretty cool, cartoonish, info-graphic animations. And while the video was pretty great overall, there were a few claims that—to quote another pal—tripped my skeptic alarm. One of these claims was that the destruction of the Amazon rainforest by logging is 7 football fields of forest land per minute. Now, I’ve heard claims along these lines since I was a kid, and at this point I’m wondering just how many football fields are there in the amazon rainforest? Can there be any left with these kind of numbers being tossed around? My own instinct told me that, surly, if they’ve been cutting down rain forests at this rate for, lets say, 10 years, how much of the rainforest would actually be left? Is there that much rain forest in the Amazon, let alone the land mass of the entire planet? My bias was telling me to debunk this obvious myth quickly. I figured I could easily post a scathing rebuttal showing that at a rate of 7 football fields a minute we would surely deforest half the galaxy in no time—let a alone the Amazon. So I went to work with the calculator.
At first I decided to use an equation based on square feet. There are 58,000 square feet on a football field. From there I intended to multiply that number by 7 (the claim made by the film) and multiply that by 60 (the number per hour) then multiply that by 24 to get a per-day football field count. That total was already beyond the capacity of my calulator, so I went back to the beginning and started with a bigger base: the acre.
There are about 1.3 acres in a football field. 7 x 1.3 = 9.1. Multiply that by the amount of minutes in a hour (60) you get 546 football fields in a day. 199,290 football fields a year.
1,992,900 football fields in a decade. This divided by 1.3 (acres) give us 1,533,000 acres of land destroyed in the Amazon in a decade.
1,533,000 acres of forest destroyed by logging in a single decade.
This number was quite a bit smaller than I thought it was going to be considering the rate of 7 football fields per minute, but I pressed on.
So let’s see how many football fields comprise the Amazon:
According to wikipedia, the Amazon is 1.7 billion acres. (1,700,000,000) 1,700,000,000 X 1.3 = 2,210,000,000
The Amazon is roughly 2,210,000,000 billion football fields.
A decade of logging will destroy 1,533,000 football fields.
By that logic, it will take 144 years to destroy the Amazon. 2,210,000,000/1,533,000=1440 1440/10 (decade) = 144 years.
This number actually seems completely plausible. That’s a long time. It doesn’t for a minute justify the destruction of the rainforest—but it is a completely realistic number. I thought for sure the number would be greater than the surface area of the earth itself, and that’s the number I was seeking out. But, lucky for me, the scientific method prevailed, and I proved myself wrong. That’s awesome! The truth is so much more satisfying than the assumption. But, we should still save the rainforest anyway, after all, it creates the air we breathe. And breathing is pretty great too.
(Also: In spirit of scientific rigor, I’m more than willing to take corrections on my math. I was coming up with these calculations after several glasses of wine. Mistakes are entirely possible/probable.)
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Dave Sez:
Yes and yes! I’ve taken out the calculator to prove myself wrong before - or just out of curiosity, and for some reason there is nothing quite so satisfying as the TRUTH, regardless of the bias you started with.
Always good to keep an open mind. Some things just sound right. And sometimes you dig a little deeper and learn something that doesn’t quite sound right, but it’s true. And sometimes you dig a little deeper and you find something that doesn’t sound right, and it’s NOT true. But for some reason, you want to believe it anyway, because you worked harder for it, or you’re proud of the fact that it is not the obvious or popular opinion… but it can still be false. I probably do this all the time.
Posted on 13.12.2008
lorie Sez:
The rain forest claim is an example of something I always took to be true because the math is so easily confirmed or refuted by the numerically inclined. (Not myself. Which is probably another reason I’m impressed by numbers. Perhaps I should think about stats a little harder).
What struck me about the video was biased use of language that, for me, undermines the strength of the message. For example, the Production chapter starts out using the blanket term “toxics” to define the chemicals used to create the products we buy. Are they really all toxic? Many of them probably are, but always is almost never true. In addition, we are hammered by the term a total of 22 times in three and a half minutes. Our narrator also traces the trail of toxics from factories to: “DUH, in our bodies!” Is type of interjection really necessary? Am I ten years old?
Another claim that got me was the $4 radio that was so affordable due to “externalized costs”. The narrator’s explanation would lead you to believe that externalized costs = human cost, when it’s really more complicated than that. If you were to produce one radio, it would probably cost you thousands of dollars. Produce thousands of radios, and the unit cost will be less. And the price of labor in other countries is far less, perhaps due to social inequities, but perhaps not.
In the end, I think the message is a good one. And if they are preaching to the choir, then the producers have done a good job. But if the motive is to reach out to people who don’t believe the system needs changing, then the specious claims and overblown language are a hindrance – serving to affirm those people’s confirmation bias!
Posted on 13.12.2008
Geoffrey Sez:
Really great points Lorie. I think I went after the football field thing because I’ve been hearing it again and again over the years and each time it sounds so implausible to me. (I still wonder if my math is wrong!) Anyway, I decided that once and for all I should just do the math and see for myself.
But yes, there were plenty of other red flags that, while not entirely (dis)provable, made me realize there was an agenda at play here, and signaled a fair amount of editorializing and opinion to follow. (Starting things off with an aside about using a tank to represent the US was a bit heavy-handed for an educational piece IMHO.)
And, like you mentioned the whole toxin argument is a sure sign of potentially unfounded claims. “Toxins” have become the go-to offender for those wanting to present a vague, imperceptible villain. (Everything is toxic, it’s the dosage/exposure that matters.)
I did like the picture she painted of a sinister factory worker dipping pillows into a vat of pure evil however!
Posted on 13.12.2008
lorie Sez:
The tank! I forgot about that one - terrible!
Posted on 13.12.2008
p auL Sez:
Actually, not to rain on your parade, but to me, your math looks off in a few places. Check your third paragraph:
“There are about 1.3 acres in a football field. 7 x 1.3 = 9.1. Multiply that by the amount of minutes in a day (60) you get 546 football fields in a day. 199,290 football fields a year.”
There’s a few problems; it looks like you’re forgetting a number in there. 9.1 is correct for deforested acres per minute. Unfortunately, there are more than 60 minutes in a day. There are, however, 60 minutes in an hour, and 24 hours in a day. So, your 546 is 24 times smaller (the number of hours per day) than the actual number. Also, at that point, since you multiplied by 1.3, you’re now solving for acres per day instead of football fields; it looks like you interchange back to football fields in there somehow.
So, back to the original calculation: 9.1 is acres per minute being deforested. 9.1x60 = 546 acres per hour being deforested. 546x24 = 13,104 acres per day being deforested.
13,104x365=4,782,960 acres per year.
4,782,960x10 = 47,829,600 acres per decade
1,700,000,000 acres per forest/47,829,600 acres removed per decade = About 35 decades = about 350 years. Give or take.
But hey, my numbers could be off too. I’ll be honest, I read this post a few days ago and thought that something was off; I didn’t really re-read it too closely, but I think the numbers I pulled should be right. What do you think?
PS: (It also looks to me like even if those tainted beginning numbers you were working with were correct…your end conclusion number would have been way off…
“By that logic, it will take 144 years to destroy the Amazon. 2,210,000,000/1,533,000=1440 1440/10 (decade) = 144 years.”
You’re dividing by a number of acres per decade, (1,533,000) - which means you actually need to multiply by 10 to find out the number of years. 1440 is the number of decades it would have taken - 1440x10 = 14,400 is the number of years your numbers should have ended up with…but it looks like they were doomed from the beginning anyways).
Posted on 21.12.2008
Geoffrey Sez:
Paul, I don’t understand a word you are saying. However, I do think it’s pretty awesome that you wasted a bunch of your time correcting my drunken math.
Bottom line: The rainforest sucks.
Posted on 21.12.2008
p auL Sez:
haha, that was my drunken math as well, so it very well could have been wrong. We were supposed to leave for the ol’ midwest on a flight early this morning, and it got canceled, so we figured we’d just drink all christmas.
Posted on 22.12.2008
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