Logan Coulter

Professor Cassel

ENG 1201-121

10 April 2020

The End of The World

Do you ever wonder how our planet lives and what will happen to it if we keep

taking all its resources? The end of the world is coming sooner than you might think.

Deforestation is a major increasing problem in today’s world. People would rather be

rich and watch the world burn for their own economic and personal gain. Rainforests

today are disappearing at an alarming rate as a result of deforestation for commercial

purposes such as logging, agriculture, and livestock. Many countries such as Brazil and

the Democratic Republic of the Congo argue that their economies depend upon these

industries and that destruction of the rainforest is economically necessary. However, the

deforestation of this precious resource is harming the economic well-being of rainforest

countries more than it is boosting their economy.

Climate change is becoming a very big issue in todays’ society and we are just

pushing it aside as if it will get better on its own. Deforestation is a major cause to the

increase in temperature on our planet because forests breathe in carbon dioxide which

is a major pollutant to Earth and what is mostly causing climate change. Tree’s breathe

in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen which is necessary for almost every basic living

thing on earth. Forests decrease leads to the increase of carbon dioxide in the

environment which traps heat in the atmosphere leading to global warming. When
humans destroy 18.7 million acres of forests annually, equivalent to twenty-

seven soccer fields every minute, that can have an enormous impact to our planet.

Tropical forests alone hold more than 228 to 247 gigatons of carbon, which is more than

seven times the amount emitted each year by human activities. Out of all the emissions

emitted into the atmosphere, deforestation alone contributes to fifteen percent of all

greenhouse gas emissions. Also, with cutting down all these trees it will only increase

the greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere even more because trees play the biggest

part in solving climate change. So why isn’t this a bigger deal to people? Most people

would rather kill all the rainforests for their own economic gain.

The main reason countries are wiping out rain forests are for commodities and

cash crop farms such as beef, palm oil, timber products, soy, cocoa, coffee, rubber, and

sugar. Countries are also clearing rain forests for oil. Ecuador, where seventy-nine

percent of its population lives in poverty, their government relies on the oil for nearly half

its revenues. Ecuador is one of many countries that rely on either oil or deforestation for

their revenues. Poor people in these countries, especially women and children, collect

fuelwood, fodder, fruits, mushrooms, medicinal herbs, nuts, honey, bamboo and grass

to make baskets and mattresses, and bark to make paper for household use or for sale

to supplement household income. Also, because these developing countries are so

poor, their governments are unable to provide alternative energy resources such as gas

or electricity, leaving them to rely on scarce forest resources for fuel, food and other

basic needs. Deep into the Amazon rainforest there was an Indian tribe named the

Cofan’s, these Indians have relied on the forest, creeks, and rivers for their food,

clothing, and their homes. Then suddenly, in 1972 an oil company named Texaco
started extracting oil from the Cofan’s homeland. Over the next twenty years of Texaco

doing this, they ended up dumping billions of gallons of untreated toxic oil waste directly

into the forest, creeks, and rivers on which the Cofan’s depended on for their survival.

The Cofan tribe did not forget what Texaco did because then again in 1991 an

American oil-exploration company marched into their village and started cutting down

trees, the tribe then had no choice to fight them back because they had nowhere else to

turn. They ended up taking the oil workers prisoner and made them leave the forest at

spear point.

When these countries take down parts of the rainforests, they are contributing to

climate change. About sixty percent of the Amazon rainforest is located inside Brazil,

and Brazil is playing a big part of that deforestation. Since the 1970’s it has been

estimated that Brazil has single handedly wiped out about twelve percent of the

Amazon. That twelve percent is representing about 192 acres of land, which is roughly

a little bit more than the size of Texas. A study that was published in the journal Nature

Climate Change in 2018 has concluded that deforestation is the single most influential

factor in a global trend that has seen an extreme increase in temperatures rising across

Europe, Asia, and North America. Also, among scientists it is concluded that although

deforestation is overlooked as not that big of a problem, we should be treating

deforestation just as we do with our concerns about fossil fuels consumption.

Deforestation has contributed to a massive loss of biodiversity which is another

major concern that we should be very afraid of. Tropical forests house at least two-

thirds of all of Earth's biodiversity, yet they suffer from the highest deforestation rates.

For instance, the Amazon has lost an estimated seventeen percent of its forests in the
past half-century. As a result, many species native to rainforests now face serious

regional and global threats of extinction. Because all these animals and plants are going

extinct, they can no longer live in the wild. We are putting them in zoo’s in order to try to

repopulate them and keep them from dying off. Many of these animals are now

dependent on humans in order to survive. An example of this would be pandas. Without

humans’ pandas would be extinct by now because there is not enough bamboo in the

wild to support them, which is their main source of food. Panda’s also have trouble

mating because a female can only ovulate once a year and only for a couple days. So,

because we view pandas as cute animals and attract tourists, people spend lots of

money and time trying to repopulate them by interfering with their mating. Also, humans

are taking away lives of so many animals because of deforestation and other climate

changing contributors that scientist are now saying that we are currently in the sixth

mass extinction event.

Another main reason many countries are cutting down forests is because Earth’s

population is reaching its maximum capacity. At the beginning of the nineteenth century,

the total world population crossed the threshold of one billion people for the first time.

Advanced medicines and healthier foods can mainly be the root causes of this.

Healthier foods and advancements in medicine have increased the average life

expectancy decreasing the overall death rate while the birth rate has gone unchanged.

Subsequently growth accelerated and the number of two billion people was already

surpassed around 1920. By 1960, another billion had been added, and it continued to

go even faster, four billion by 1974, five billion by 1987, six billion by 1999 and seven

billion in 2011. According to the most recent projections by the United Nations, the
number of eight billion will probably be exceeded by 2025, and around 2045 there will

be more than nine billion people. All this population growth has increased the global

demand for food as well. As we increase as a population, we must create more space to

build homes, roads, cities etc. Population growth has also contributed to deforestation

because the larger our population gets the more food we consume, which means we

must produce a lot more. This forces countries to chop down forests for its rich nutrient

soil in order to expand agriculture, grow the best crops and produce a lot of them.

Another big cause of deforestation would be forest fires. It is said that most fires

observed in the Amazon rainforest region have been set by humans in order to clear

any excess vegetation that has popped up from areas that have already been cleared

for cattle or crops. Within the last decade we have seen the Amazon rainforest lose

more than the size of eight million soccer fields to deforestation. The Amazon rainforest

is this Earth’s best defense to climate change, but that could soon change in the near

future. A study pointed out that these fires could imperil the rainforests ability to fight

climate change to the point where the forest could begin contributing more planet-

warming gases to the air than it absorbs by the year 2050 or even sooner.

After concerted efforts from the Brazilian government after the mid-2000’s, as

well as the coordinated pressure internationally, Brazil made changes in the

management of the forest and the agricultural land. These efforts were proved very

successful, by 2012 the annual deforestation rate bottomed out at about eighty percent

lower than the average rate between 1995 and 2006. All that hard work could possibly

come to an end because in 2018 Brazil elected a new president, Jair Bolsonaro, who

pledged to increase agricultural activity in the Amazon and smooth the way for more
development in the region. During his 2018 presidential campaign he declared “Not

one centimeter of land will be demarcated for Indigenous reserves." Which is basically

saying he does not care about the Indian tribes who live in the Amazon that are

dependent on the forests resources to survive. By doing this he is going to begin

bulldozing the Amazon and possibly kill Earth in the process of doing this. President

Bolsonaro has also made the Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment issue less pricey fines

for illegal deforestation than they have in the past eleven years.

America’s president Donald Trump is also easing back on environmental

restrictions. President Trump was elected president after Barack Obama, Barack

Obama was in full support of protecting the environment while he was in office and

managed to grow the economy and at the same time decrease carbon emissions.

Obama also stated that “no challenge poses a greater threat to our children, our planet,

and future generations than climate change, and that no other country on Earth is better

equipped to lead the world towards a solution.” When Trump first came into office in

2017 one of the first things he did was create the "America First Energy Plan,” which

does not mention renewable energy. This energy plan was created to loosen

regulations he saw as stifling businesses and U.S. energy output. In June 2017,

President Trump has announced that the United States will end all participation in the

2015 Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation. Trump decided to do this because

he thinks that "The Paris accord will undermine the U.S. economy," and "puts the U.S.

at a permanent disadvantage.” This just goes to show everyone that our President and

many others do not care about the health of our beautiful home we call Earth. The exit

in the Paris Agreement also shows everyone that this was strictly a business move, no
thought or care about the environment went into this thought process at all. In April

2018 Trump’s administration announced plans to undo the Obama administration’s auto

fuel efficiency and emission standards. After undoing this, Trump then issued new

standards that allow new vehicles to emit about one billion tons of additional carbon

dioxide into the atmosphere, equivalent to about a fifth of the annual Unites States

emissions. Also, in May 2019 President Trump announced that they are going to roll

back on safety measures for offshore oil drilling operations.

In conclusion, our planet is dying, and we are not acting fast enough to try and

save it. We call this amazing planet home but do not treat it as if it is. We breathe

Earth’s air yet destroy the tree’s that make our air for money, agriculture, or to create

more space for our continuously growing population. We have zoos to go look at and

care for all of Earth’s beautiful creatures, yet destroy their homes. Majority of people

today look at Earth’s resources as their own to take and sell for their own economic

gain, and yes that’s how developing countries make most their money, but there should

be more enforcement on saving our planet. These countries that rely on deforestation

for its trade value should take a step back and realize that what they are doing is going

to hurt everyone in the long run. We are running out of time to act.

Works cited
"Deforestation." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2019. Opposing

Viewpoints in Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/PC3010999217/OVIC?

u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=77b52b41. Accessed 8 March 2020

"The World Must Move Faster to Conserve Tropical Rainforests." Biodiversity, edited by

Debra A. Miller, Greenhaven Press, 2013. Current Controversies. Opposing

Viewpoints in Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ3010209297/OVIC?

u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=b56241d9. Accessed 8 March 2020. Originally

published as "The World's Lungs: There Is Hope for Forests, But Mankind Needs

to Move Faster if They Are to Be Saved," The Economist, 23 Sept. 2010.

“Climate 101: Deforestation | National Geographic.” YouTube, uploaded by National

Geographic, 21 August 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic-J6hcSKa8

“Deforestation and Forest Degradation.” 15 April 2019,

https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation-and-forest-degradation

Brad Plumer. “Tropical Forests Suffered Near-Record Tree Losses in 2017.” The New

York Times, 27 June 2018, Page A6.

Carey-Webb, Jessica. “The Amazon Is Still on Fire.” NRDC. 25 February 2020.

https://www.nrdc.org/experts/jessica-carey-webb/amazon-still-fire

DiCaprio, Leonardo. Personal Interview. 15 April 2019.

Kane, Joe. "Oil Companies Pose a Threat to the Rain Forests." Rain Forests, edited by

HaiSong Harvey, Greenhaven Press, 2002. At Issue. Opposing Viewpoints in

Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ3010021217/OVIC?
 u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=a59805d4. Accessed 10 March 2020. Originally

published as "Battle for the Rain Forest," Scholastic Update, 8 Feb. 1999.

Richards, John F., and Richard P. Tucker. World deforestation in the twentieth century.

Durham: Duke University Press, 1988.

The Editorial Board. “Losing Ground in the Amazon.” The New York Times, 15 April

2014.

Torrella, Sebastián A., et al. “Multiscale Spatial Planning to Maintain Forest Connectivity

in the Argentine Chaco in the Face of Deforestation.” Ecology & Society, vol. 23,

no. 4, Dec. 2018, pp. 605–623. EBSCOhost, doi:10.5751/ES-10546-230437.