Last year, and again currently, Australia is suffering the worst forest fires in its history and, last year we saw similar events in Spain, Greece and California among others. The Southern United States experienced it's worst hurricanes a year ago, and Africa has for decades endured prolonged droughts.This years record temperatures and long drought have been blamed for the fires in Australia, and indeed in other countries, and even now, Northern Europe is in the grip of its worst winter in a long time. Britain in particular has been hard hit by unusually heavy snowfalls across the whole country, and other parts have record low temperatures. Northern European summers are a joke these days. Most years we don't get one, hence my move to Spain!
I am old enough to remember the wonderful warm summers in England during the fifties, followed by a real winter, with in between a proper Spring and Autumn. Remember March winds and April showers and those balmy September days. Now all that has changed, and not for the better.
But what is the real reason for all this global climatic change? The scientists have their theories, few of which seem to coincide. Some say it is Global Warming which is either a cyclic thing or the result of too many emissions. But as a layman, I blame one thing: The huge reduction in the world's rain forests.
Weather satellite images show clearly that the weather patterns for the Eastern United States and Europe, in particular the west and north, are generated by the rain forests in South America. This extremely humid mass of vegetation, covering thousands of square miles, is responsible for the moisture-laden tropical depressions that shoot out into the Atlantic and eventually meet the hot dry air coming out of Africa.
It is easy to follow the track of these weather systems on weather satellite images, and see how they form hurricanes during the season when conditions are right for the generation of these destructive storms. It is also possible to see how weather systems track north into, and across the Atlantic to Northern Europe.
We should not forget the Gulf Stream, that current of warm water that moves across the ocean to the northern tip of Scotland which is the reason for the temperate climate generally experienced in the United Kingdom.
So why is everything turning upside down? It cannot be a mere coincidence that the changes in weather patterns experienced by many countries surrounding the Atlantic started to happen a few short years after the rain forests of South America were put to the chainsaw!
In 1995 and 2004, a total of 11,220 and 10,590 square miles of rain forest respectively, were destroyed in a single year. Since 1988 a total of 137,169 square miles (conservative estimate) have been destroyed by clearing for cattle pasture, colonization or the subsistence culture, road building and logging.
The ever-increasing export of Brazilian beef products to Europe, 40% of production in 1990 rising to 80% in 2003, has driven the increase in forest destruction for cattle farming purposes.
The Brazilian Government is deeply involved in giving forest land to poor people who clear it with slash-and-burn methods to plant crops. This is the governments way of getting rid of the poor people out of the cities.
The government is also responsible for the huge tracts of forest that have been cut down to make roads. They had a plan to build a 2,000 mile motorway right through the heart of the Amazon to open up the interior to loggers, farmers and cattle ranchers. Thankfully the scheme failed.
Agriculture, in the form of soya bean farms, is expanding to such an extent that the slash-and-burn farmers are being pushed further into the forests. Last of all, are the loggers who enter an area and leave a wasteland behind them; all for profit.
Perhaps the worst crime is the poor farmers. They are given an area to settle by the Government and clear the ground with a slash and burn technique that involves setting fire to the undergrowth, and after that has burnt out they clear away what is left. After about six months work they have an area of land cleared where they can plant crops, but the sad thing is, the ground will only support crops for one year before it becomes useless. This means the poor farmers must then move on to another piece of forest and do it all again, and so on and so on Ad Infinitum. What is left behind is dead ground where practically nothing grows, or will grow. In 25 or 50 years time, I wonder what they will call the great South American desert???? This state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue, for the sake of the planet.
Back to the main point, and the Amazon's effect on the weather. We have already seen major changes in weather patterns since 1988 when large scale clearance began but what of the future? What will the effect be on global weather when these rain forests have all but disappeared?
Don't forget, we are not only talking about the loss of the Amazon, because exactly the same thing is happening to the rain forests in the Far East, and their weather is changing too.
One other important factor for the survival of mankind is the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. Among other things trees provide us with the oxygen we breath, and the rain forests, outside of the oceans (plankton etc), are the biggest providers of oxygen on the planet.
So, what do we do? First of all, international pressure must be brought to bear on the governments of Brazil, Thailand, Malaysia, The Congo and all other keepers of the world's rain forests to stop the destruction of one of the earths most valuable resources that are vital to mankind's survival on this planet. Secondly, and this goes for most countries, plant trees, trees, and more trees. We in Europe and North America are just as guilty, although on a smaller scale, because we have systematically removed forest and woodland for the sake of agriculture so we could produce more food than we can eat or export. How stupid is that? Long gone are the days when fields were separated by hedgerows filled with birds and insects that ate all the pests that attacked our crops. Now we rely on pesticides! But that is another story!
The people need to come together in concerted action to stop this rape of our natural resources, and get the Planet and Mother Nature back into equilibrium. It is not enough to give a few pence to organizations like Greenpeace and leave it up to them. If action is not taken on a global scale, the weather phenomenons we are experiencing today will become the norm, so get used to it.
Hug a tree today, or better still: Plant One!
Roy.
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