When homo sapiens first emerged from the jungles of Africa they were few in numbers and their " hunter/gatherer " lifestyle had little impact on the planet. Now the world census is somewhere about the seven billion mark and it is a reasonable question to ask just how many people is this earth capable of sustaining ?
That is not the problem in the developed world. Family size has shrunk to below replacement numbers and it is not uncommon for many families to make a conscious decision to remain childless. The wonders of birth control have not penetrated to many parts of the planet, or are not permitted by quite a few religions and consequently we are fast heading towards an over populated planet.
The need for both food and wealth is creating a new danger to the human race. We are fast clearing away the lungs of the planet and nowhere is this more evident than in Indonesia and Brazil. Desperate farmers are using fire to clear trees and vegetation to create new cropland and when the weather conditions permit this can be clearly seen from the space station.
During the fire season in Indonesia this chain of islands is wreathed in smoke from deliberately lit fires. This is a combination of corporations clearing land for new palm oil plantations to individual farmers trying to crib a bit more land for subsistence farming. It is against the law but the perpetrators mask their arson and claim natural causes.
The situation in Brazil is even more perilous. The Amazon is the biggest patch of untamed greenery on the planet and it is fast disappearing. Once again the reason is commercial land clearing for the valuable timber and for food crop land. The Brazil government has come under pressure from world leaders and the army is being deployed to help stamp out these fires. Unfortunately, a deliberately dropped match in the right wind and weather conditions can result in uncontrollable fires.
We are well aware that we have a problem with human activity increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air and that this is responsible for global warming. Science is now telling us this removal of plant matter will have a reduction in the amount of oxygen we breathe. This oxygen is being constantly replenished as vegetation absorbs carbon dioxide and replaces it with oxygen. If we seriously reduce the plant matter growing on this planet we will reduce the ability to refresh the air we breathe with new oxygen.
It can't get more basic than that. Trees and other vegetation are the lungs of the planet. The process of photosynthesis absorbs carbon dioxide and generates oxygen, and we are seriously altering the ratio of plants necessary to maintain the balance necessary for human life. A planet without oxygen would be very similar to Mars.
The higher we go in the air the less oxygen we encounter and where the jet planes fly there is insufficient for humans to survive. Unless we provide sufficient tree cover we will eventually have thinner air at ground level.
That is a very good reason to put those fires out !
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