>> Today, clearing rain forests currently puts 1 billion tons of Carbon per >> year into the atmosphere.The end result of this emission level is a net >> increase in atmospheric CO2, > >you are really off here, cutting forest is one time....(and forest are cut >to grow crops, a recycling .....You do not 'put 1 billion tons of Carbon PER >year into the atmosphere.' >(read also of Dan Sterner's posting of same thread) >Who is burning all them fossil fuels?....every year ,all the years >Non renewable sources. >.........
Actually I'd more or less agree with swani here Arron, though the numbers
I'm not sure of the principle is valid. Although most oxygen is produce by
the oceans, trees and other living things help store the greenhouse gas
CO2 to use as the carbon that they need to grow and survive. In a normal
cycle of growth and decay the levels would in theory stay fairly level,
but with deforestation and our environmental pollution we are now in the
position of producing more greenhouse gases while at the same time
removing the bulk of what we depend on to keep the levels down.
The 1 billion per year, again I'm not sure of the number, but I'd guess he
didn't mean from the same forest area, rather the next and the next and so
on, we are removing that much a year.
I'd certainly agree that the people living there have a right to a good
life and chances at the same things we had, but the resources of the
rainforests are so valuable that I think we need to help them find another
way besides the methods now being used. Again, though the other factors
are also important, I can't personally get past the fact that a number of
species that can't be found anywhere else in the world can be completely
removed from the face of the earth by just burning one valley. We are
causing the extinction worldwide of various species at a rate that hasn't
been seen since the age of the dinosaurs. In the whole world, I'm aware of
no one place as diverse and valuable in this respect as the South American
rainforests. The penalties for saying it's just their land to do as they
wish with are too high, though we shouldn't force them, we do need to try
real hard to teach and show a better way.