assorted writing

DEATH BY DEFORESTATION: THE DOUBLE JEOPARDY

The fact that deforestation continues to be a global headache in this age and era only attests to how stubborn humans can be in the pursuit of selfish motives. Nothing positive has ever come out of deforestation. Soil erosion, loss of species, water cycle disturbance and the ruin of life quality in general constitute only a tip of the iceberg. In actuality, degradation of forests can set-off a devastating chain of events, worst of all: extinction, by global warming.
      Regardless of this, humans continue to "slash and burn" forests at a rate uncalled for. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) pegs its estimate at about 36 football fields worth of trees lost every minute worldwide. Then there is the usual justification for this barbaric behavior: namely, the need for more land for housing and urbanization, animal rearing, commercial farming and all you could mention. However, none of them combined, can rationalize the damage being done to mother Earth.
      Let us take a quick look at how deforestation is surely killing our planet.
      Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that is most instrumental in global warming. Too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere results in an increase in the Earth’s average temperature, leading to a chain of negative and adverse effects: fires, droughts, pest infestation, invasion of species, storms, and floods; to name only a few.
      Trees on the other hand, are instrumental in curbing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. They do this in two ways.
      Foremost, trees act as carbon sinks. A carbon sink is anything that absorbs more carbon than it releases as carbon dioxide. Put simply, every tree you see, is at work absorbing and reducing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
      Secondly, trees are a natural storage for carbon in the form of biomass. Greenpeace International, an organization devoted to protecting forests, estimates that 300 billion tons of carbon, 40 times the annual greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, are stored in trees.

The deforestation of trees not only lessens the amount of carbon stored inert, it releases the carbon dioxide into the air. Thus, when trees die, they release the stored carbon back into the atmosphere. But this time around with fewer trees to sink it back into – Double Jeopardy. Without these natural carbon sinks, which humans continue to plunder at alarming levels, global warming is definitely at our peril. It is a death sentence that human kind has obliviously passed on from generation to generation. Only now, the end is nigh.
      There is no escaping it, it is irreversible and the writing is on the wall - mankind is about to be wiped out - as human activities continue to accelerate mother Earth’s doomsday by emitting massive quantities of carbon dioxide and other Greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
      Scientific evidence is everywhere, although many choose to disregard it. According to NASA’s climate scientists, “the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil has increased the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) by more than a third” (from 280 parts per million to 400 parts per million) since the Industrial Revolution began.
      Other activities that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, apart from deforestation, are natural gas distribution and landfills.

Looking at it from a clear angle, it is easy to note that we are all part of the problem; you, me and everybody else in our countries and beyond. It is high time that we decided, every one of us, to take part in efforts to curb man-induced climate change to slow down Earth’s obliteration. What needs to be taken into consideration here is that the situation is beyond repair and whether we engage in curbing climate change or not, global warming will still take its toll on Earth, slowly maybe, but surely.
      Many may not believe that the end is here but the logic is simple: without greenhouse gases we would freeze to death and with too much greenhouse gases the Earth would heat up beyond survivable levels. Regrettably, scientific evidence shows that we are heading towards the latter - a phenomenon where we will all be burnt to ashes and beyond recognition. And even for those that may survive the heat, mother Earth will have been scorched way beyond life-sustaining levels.

What more evidence do we need? From prolonged and intensified droughts in eastern Africa; unprecedented floods in western Africa; depletion of rain forests in equatorial Africa; to an increase in ocean acidity around Africa’s southern coast – the list is endless and final days are here .
      Globally however, climate scientists are working day and night devising ways of dealing with greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removing GHGs from the atmosphere in order to prevent our world from heating. They have gone to the extent of creating man-made sinks to absorb and store GHGs (especially CO2) from the earth’s atmosphere. But we all know that man can never win war against nature.

According to the 2010 Global Forest Resources Assessment, deforestation releases nearly a billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere per year, making deforestation the second largest anthropogenic (man-induced) source of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
      As trivial as it may seem, slowly yet certainly, the human race has sentenced Mother Earth to death by deforestation. And the execution day has arrived.