Why Should We Stop Deforestation Essay

[Analisa Wack]

Thethreats to nature vary from region to region. For example, in the tropics, agribusiness clears forests to make space for things like cattle ranching, palm oil, and soy plantations for animal feed. Demand for wood products can threaten forests around the world, whether it is for throw-away paper products or hardwood flooring.

Companies should set ambitious targets to maximize the use of recycled wood, pulp, paper and fiber in their products. For the non-recycled products they buy, they should ensure that any virgin fiber used has transparent, credible assurances that it was sourced in a legal way that respects principles of environmental and social responsibility. Third-party certification like the Forest Stewardship Council can be a starting point in evaluating sourcing. Greenpeace strongly advises against other weaker forest product certification schemes such as PEFC and SFI.

For example, the Waswanipi Cree of Northern Quebec are fighting to keep the last wild forests on their traditional land intact, and the Munduruku people of the Amazon are battling a proposed mega-dam that threatens rainforests, a river, and their way of life.

You can make a difference in the fight to save forests by making informed daily choices. By consuming less, avoiding single-use packaging, eating sustainable food, and choosing recycled or responsibly-produced wood products, we can all be part of the movement to protect forests.

In the United States, laws like the Endangered Species Act, the Wilderness Act, the Lacey Act, and the Roadless Rule help protect our forests and stop illegal wood products from entering the U.S. marketplace. We also support global treaties like the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Framework Convention on Climate Change that have the potential to protect forests and the wildlife that rely on forest habitats.

Left unchecked, these impacts will spread and worsen, affecting our homes and cities, economies, food and water supplies as well as the species, ecosystems, and biodiversity of this planet we all call home.

Scientists have known for centuries that the Earth has a natural blanket of greenhouse or heat-trapping gases. This blanket keeps the Earth more than 30 degrees Celsius (over 60 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than it would be otherwise. Without this blanket, our Earth would be a frozen ball of ice.

The human-caused increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is much greater than any observed in the paleoclimate history (i.e. ancient climate data measured through ice sheets, tree rings, sediments and more) of the earth. As a result, temperature in the air and ocean is now increasing faster than at any time in human history.

Climate change is affecting our planet in many ways. Average temperatures are increasing; rainfall patterns are shifting; snow lines are retreating; glaciers and ice sheets are melting; permafrost is thawing; sea levels are rising; and severe weather is becoming more frequent.

In particular, heatwaves are becoming more frequent and more intense. Tropical cyclones like hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones are intensifying faster and dumping more rain. Wildfires are burning greater area, and in many areas around the world, heavy rainfall is becoming more frequent and droughts are getting stronger.

In western North America, salmon rely on steady-flowing cold rivers to spawn. As climate change alters the temperature and flow of these waterways, some salmon populations are dwindling. This change in salmon population affects many species that rely on salmon like orcas or grizzly bears.

Changes in temperature and moisture are causing some species to migrate in search of new places to live. For instance, in North America, species are shifting their ranges an average of 11 miles north and 36 feet higher in elevation each decade to find more favorable conditions. The Central Appalachians are one resilient climate escape route that may help species adapt to changing conditions.

There are some natural places with enough topographical diversity such that, even as the planet warms, they can be resilient strongholds for plant and animal species. These strongholds serve as breeding grounds and seed banks for many plants and animals that otherwise may be unable to find habitat due to climate change. However, strongholds are not an option for all species, and some plants and animals are blocked from reaching these areas by human development like cities, highways and farmland.

From reducing agricultural productivity to threatening livelihoods and homes, climate change is affecting people everywhere. You may have noticed how weather patterns near you are shifting or how more frequent and severe storms are developing in the spring. Maybe your community is experiencing more severe flooding or wildfires.

Climate change also exacerbates the threat of human-caused conflict resulting from a scarcity of resources like food and water that become less reliable as growing seasons change and rainfall patterns become less predictable.

Many of these impacts are disproportionately affecting low-income, Indigenous, or marginalized communities. For example, in large cities in North America, low-income communities are often hotter during heatwaves, more likely to flood during heavy downpours, and the last to have their power restored after storms.

Earlier, we described how greenhouse gases trap heat around the planet. Only a small fraction of the extra heat being trapped by the carbon pollution blanket is going into heating up the atmosphere. Almost 90% of the heat is going into the ocean, causing the ocean to warm.

In addition to taking up heat, the oceans are also absorbing about a quarter of the carbon pollution that humans produce. In addition to warming the air and water of our planet, some of this extra carbon dioxide is being absorbed by the ocean, making our oceans more acidic. In fact, the rate of ocean acidification is the highest it has been in 300 million years!

Climate change is disrupting weather patterns, leading to more extreme and frequent heatwaves, droughts, and flooding events that directly threaten harvests. Warmer seasons are also contributing to rising populations of insect pests that eat a higher share of crop yields, and higher carbon dioxide levels are causing plants to grow faster, while decreasing their nutritional content.

These impacts make it more difficult for farmers to grow crops and sustain their livelihoods. Globally, one recent study finds that staple crop yield failures will be 4.5 times higher by 2030 and 25 times higher by mid-century. That means a major rice or wheat failure every other year, and higher probabilities of soybean and maize failures.

Yes, deforestation, land use change, and agricultural emissions are responsible for about a quarter of heat-trapping gas emissions from human activities. Agricultural emissions include methane from livestock digestion and manure, nitrous oxide from fertilizer use, and carbon dioxide from land use change.

At the same time, we have to transition all sectors of our economy away from fossil fuels that emit carbon, through increasing our use of clean energy sources like wind and solar. This transition will happen much faster and more cost-effectively if governments enact an economy-wide price on carbon.

Adaptation consists of helping our human and natural systems prepare for the impacts of a warming planet. Greening urban areas helps protect them from heat and floods; restoring coastal wetlands helps protect from storm surge; increasing the diversity of ecosystems helps them to weather heat and drought; growing super-reefs helps corals withstand marine heatwaves. There are many ways we can use technology, behavioral change, and nature to work together to make us more resilient to climate impacts.

We need to increase renewable energy at least nine-fold from where it is today to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and avoid the worst climate change impacts. Every watt that we can reduce through efficiency or shift from fossil fuel to renewables like wind power or solar power is a step in the right direction.

The best science we have tells us that to avoid the worst impacts of global warming, we must globally achieve net-zero carbon emissions no later than 2050. To do this, the world must immediately identify pathways to reduce carbon emissions from all sectors: transportation, agriculture, electricity, and industry. This cannot be achieved without a major shift to renewable energy.

Clean energy and technological innovation are not only helping mitigate climate change, but also helping create jobs and support economic growth in communities across the world. Renewable energy such as wind and solar have experienced remarkable growth and huge cost improvements over the past decade with no signs of slowing down.

Prices are declining rapidly, and renewable energy is becoming increasingly competitive with fossil fuels all around the world. In some places, new renewable energy is already cheaper than continuing to operate old, inefficient, and dirty fossil fuel-fired power plants.

Fortunately, TNC studies have found that we can meet clean energy demand 17 times over without converting more natural habitat. The key is to deploy new energy infrastructure on the wealth of previously converted areas such as agricultural lands, mine sites, and other transformed terrain, at a lower cost.

There can also be unique interventions to protect wildlife where clean energy has already been developed. In Kenya, for instance, a wind farm employs biodiversity monitors to watch for migrating birds, and can order individual turbines to shut down in less than a minute.

Some amount of change has already occurred, and some future changes are inevitable due to our past choices. However, the good news is that we know what causes it and what to do to stop it. It will take courage, ambition, and a push to create change, but it can be done.

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