Amazon Rainforest series - part 3: human involvement

Hi everyone,

This is the last post in the amazon rainforest mini series. It's all about how humans have affected the amazon rainforest. Unfortunately, most human impact on the amazon is negative.

The Amazon rainforest faces many threats, but the main one is fire. You may think that the fires in the amazon are wildfires or created by accident, but that is not true. All over the amazon, farmers are setting fire to the trees and foliage. For only one reason, to clear land for farming. But this is a disaster. Last month, the amazon rainforest reached its tipping point. Due to the fires, it is now releasing more CO2 than it is absorbing. To feed our growing population, we are killing countless species. Species, that in some cases, we haven't even discovered yet. If the amazon rainforest goes, climate change will become pretty much unstoppable.

But it isn't only animals and plants that are suffering. Do you remember all those tribes that live in the amazon? They mostly depend on the forest for food and shelter. Imagine if you lived in the forest like so many people do. Imagine flames suddenly coming out of nowhere. I am pretty sure that many people have found themselves in that position. It's highly probable that some people haven't lived to tell the tale.

In the last post, we mentioned food webs and talked about just how vulnerable they are. Food webs are collapsing - not only in the amazon but in the whole world. The ecosystem of the amazon is struggling under immense pressure. This pressure mounts daily. Everything we do, has an impact. It is easy to look away. It's easy to pretend that climate change doesn't exist. What the world governments do now, will either save or destroy the planet. The amazon rainforest is home to so much - are we really going to let that be destroyed. It isn't our planet, it isn't our forest. The world doesn't belong to any human - it belongs to nature.

Sources:
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/education/amazon/
https://wwf.panda.org/discover/knowledge_hub/where_we_work/amazon/amazon_threats/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/one-third-of-the-amazon-has-been-degraded-by-human-activities/

Image: El Niño Could Drive Intense Season for Amazon Fires, owned by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (on flickr.com), is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Comments

Ecosia

We all need to do something to save our planet: it is no use just leaving it to Greta Thunberg! She is very inspirational, yes, but she can only do so much. She isn't superhuman! The climate crisis is up to us; up to you. We all have to get stuck in. Research, learn, discover and most importantly: never give up! The world's animals need us. The world's trees need us and a simple way to do this is to switch to Ecosia. Ecosia is a search engine but it plants trees while you search the web. Okay, it doesn't have as many websites as google so you may want to have google as a backup but it plants trees: this is your opportunity to make a simple change. Just google Ecosia and search to plant trees. Make a difference. Image: This image is owned by Binyamin Mellish on pexels.com .

How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the environment?

Hello and welcome back to another post! The pandemic has affected us all in many ways but what about the environment. How has it been affected? Today we'll be going into that. How did it start? So COVID-19 broke out in late 2019 in China but how it started is still a greatly controversial topic. Prof Stephan Turner told The Guardian in an online article in April: [...] says what’s most likely is that virus originated in bats. However, how it transferred to humans still isn't 100% certain. Scientists mostly agree that it didn't come directly from a bat, but instead was transferred through another animal. Regardless of how it reached humans, the main idea is that it came from a live animal, either in a food market or in the meat industry . Either way, it was our mistreatment of animals that lead to this disastrous pandemic that has claimed the lives of over 6.5 million people! Emissions When many businesses, industries and...

Announcement: Factfile

This image is owned by a blog editor.

Linking climate change and inequality - 'The Great Carbon Divide'

Hey everyone, Have you heard of 'The great carbon divide‘? It is often referred to as the 'carbon footprint gap' or the 'emissions imbalance‘, and produces frightening numbers. The great carbon divide describes the huge gap between the amount of carbon dioxide the rich versus the poor emit, and these numbers shocked even us. What does this mean? There have been many different studies, and all of them show terrifying results. One study from the Guardian and Oxfam, reports that the richest 1% of the world's population emit more carbon than the poorest 66%. The richest 1% consist of 77 million people, which may seem like a lot at first, but the poorest 66% refers to over 5 billion people! Africa, which is home to 17% of the world's population, only causes 4% of the world's emissions. This top 1% emitted 16% of global CO2 emissions in 2019, that's 5.9 billion tonnes of CO2. Modelling suggests that it would take someone who isn't in the top 1% about 150...

Overfishing- An Introduction

When writing the article on the Yangtze Finless Porpoise, I briefly touched on the topic of overfishing. Many of you have probably heard about it, and know it is a massive problem threatening our seas and their inhabitants. Overfishing is so destructive, it can kill all life in the ocean, and many of you might be part of it every day. So I read through many articles from international organisations, and they all say pretty much the same things. It's a highly complex topic, with so many things to say and do, so this is just an introduction to the broadest points. It's very interesting (and sad) but when you look into it further you realize there is actually a lot you can do! This is very important, especially for ocean lovers and seafood people. What is overfishing? By definition, overfishing is so intense fishing, people catch fish quicker than the stocks can reproduce. Leading to a massive decrease in stocks that can peak in the extinction of a s...

LGBTQ+ animals | Pride month special 2022

Hi, As you probably know, it's pride month! Here on Green World we fully support the LGBTQ+ community. Many homophobes and transphobes will tell you that being LGBTQ+ isn't natural. But what they don't know is that over 1 500 different animal species are indeed part of this community! So, today we are going to being covering just a few of these animals. Note: We do not tolerate LGBTQ-phobic comments. All hate comments will be deleted. Sexual Orientation Within the LGBTQ+ community, there are many sexual orientations and most of them can also be found in animals! Here are just a few examples: Rams You probably didn't know, but up to 8% of rams are homosexual. This is quite a lot considering that only 1.7% of US adults identify as homosexual. Laysan albatross 31% of all pairs were lesbian in one study. That is a lot. Bottlenose dolphins One gay pair had a 17 year long relationship. This goes to show that same sex pai...

Animals 36-40 in our '50 incredible animals' series

Hi, As you probably noticed, we took a break from this series, mostly due to having just too much to do. But we're back now with the last three posts. 36. The Pinocchio frog The Pinocchio frog can be found in the Foja Mountains in Indonesia. They mainly eat insects, although little is known about them. They are named because the males have a spike on their noses. They were only discovered in 2008, and this was completely by accident! It remained unnamed scientifically until over ten years later when it was given the name " Litoria pinocchio " . There is very little information about them but Wikipedia states that "the male Pinocchio frog inflates its nose when calling, and the nose decreases in size when the frog is calm and quiet," which I think is hilarious and so interesting! 37. Snub-nosed monkey Especially noticeable due to their curious looks, the snub-nosed monkeys can be found in the forests of central China and northern...

Metamorphosis

Hello! Today we thought it would be good to explain exactly how metamorphosis works. It's a term that we often use when talking about frogs, butterflies or other animals, but we've never actually explained what it is or how it works. What is metamorphosis? Metamorphosis is the term used to describe the changes that some animals undergo when turning into adults. It is a physical change that happens after birth/hatching. There is a brilliant quote from the website a-z animals that I just couldn't put any better: unlike the typical subtle developments in animals, metamorphosis is dramatic. It’s controlled by a release of hormones in the cells. Mammals usually move from adolescence to adulthood and old age gradually, maintaining their form and shape. However, in metamorphosis, an animal moves through those stages and changes from one form or shape to another. How does metamorphosis work? Let's take the classic butterfly example./d...

10 Animals on the Edge of Extinction No. 10- The Javan Rhino

The Javan rhino is listed as the 1st animal on WWF’s list of the 10 world’s most endangered animals, and I for my part, had never heard of it! If you hadn’t either, we’re changing that now. A bit about the rhino’s lifestyle The Javan rhinos are now exclusively found on the island of Java in Indonesia, but were once found in vast regions of northeast india and Southeast Asia. They have a dark grey colour which looks almost black when wet, and their (often pink) skin folds look a bit like plated armor. Both males and females have lower incisors which resemble tusks that they use to fight. Males have one relatively short horn of about 25 cm (10 inches). Javan Rhinos live in tropical forests, marshy areas and in the thick bush. They are mainly browsers and eat over 100 plants species they find in the forest, weigh between 900 and 2300 kg (1984-5071 pounds) and are between 3 and 3.2 meters (10- 10.5 feet) long. How endangered are we talking? Javan rhinos are the most ...

16.08.2020 Animal of the week: Elephant

Hello. On the 12th of August it was International Elephant Day, so we decided that this week's post should be about elephants. Elephants are the largest living land mammals. There are three types of elephant; the African bush elephant; the African forest elephant and the Asian elephant. African elephants have larger ears, whereas Asian elephants have smaller ears. Elephants use their trunks to breath, bring food and drink to their mouths and to grasp objects. Elephants' legs are like pillars. They carry the Elephant's massive weight. African bush elephants weigh 6000kg, Asian elephants weigh 4000kg and African forest elephants weigh 2700kg. Basically, they are very heavy.Elephants eat grasses, small plants, bushes, fruit, twigs, tree bark, and roots. Elephants can live up to 70 years old in the wild. They communicate by sight, touch and smell. Sadly, these wonderful mammals are in danger. African elephants are listed as vulne...

Green World

Search This Blog