For the past few weeks, the world’s attention has been
focused on a possible Russia-Ukraine war and for much longer, of course,
COVID-19 developments, with little or no thought for many other problems that
could seriously affect the life of the globe. One such issue is deforestation
in the Amazon, especially on the Brazilian side.
اضافة اعلان
War is ugly, and pandemics disrupt life as we know it, so
the focus of the international community on such episodes is justified; what
cannot be justified, however, is that humanity underestimates the environmental
hazards that threaten the entire planet, the habitability of our earth and
future generations.
Quoting government data, Reuters recently reported that
“Brazil recorded the most deforestation ever in the Amazon Rainforest for the
month of January 2022” and that “deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon totalled 430sq.km. last month, five times higher than January
2021”.
Environmentalists blame the ill practice on the Brazilian
authorities, which seem to have a problem with environmental protection and cut
down tress to have more land to grow coffee and soy and raise beef, to make
money. But this bores a hole in a ship that is carrying the entire human race!
There is a good reason why tropical rainforests are
considered the “lungs of the planet”. They simply inhale carbon dioxide and
exhale oxygen, necessary for living creatures. This situation is changing,
however, as the Amazon forest is struggling with the growing CO2 emission,
mostly blamed on human activities.
A report in the Guardian in July last year gave unpleasant
news, citing scientists confirming, for the first time, that the Amazon
Rainforest “is now emitting more carbon dioxide than it is able to absorb”. The
newspaper quoted Luciana Gatti, a researcher from the National Institute for
Space Research in Brazil, as saying: “The first very bad news is that forest
burning produces around three times more CO2 than the forest absorbs. The
second bad news is that the places where deforestation is 30 percent or more
show carbon emissions 10 times higher than where deforestation is lower than 20
percent.”
In other words, the planet is suffocating and we no longer
need wars to kill each other. Unless something is done to offset the
overwhelming harmful emissions, the consequences will be dire, and action
should be taken now.
The crucial mission ahead is to increase humans’ awareness
of the problem, so that each and every one of us realizes that there is a
serious problem affecting entire life on this planet, and that the next
generation will inherit a worse place than the one we inherited from our
ancestors.
... the Amazon Rainforest ‘is now emitting more carbon dioxide than it is able to absorb’.
World leaders and influential powers should act, through the
UN, and take binding resolutions to curb human activities that deprive the
globe of its precious oxygen, not only in the Amazon forest, but all around the
world.
Political differences, economic interests and sometimes
ideologies have kept us apart, but now we have something that can unite us, as
humans and countries: striving to save our planet.
We can never live happily if Earth is dying; it is bleeding
now because of the many sins we commit against nature, and one of them is the
deforestation of the Amazon.
An end must be put to such a seriously damaging practice,
and it must be done without a second to lose.
The writer is a former advisor at the Royal Hashemite Court,
a former director of media and communication at the Office of His Majesty King
Abdullah, and works currently as a senior advisor for business development at
Al-Ghad and Jordan News.
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