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Deforestation is a primary contributor to climate change, [1] [2] and climate change affects the health of forests. [3] Land use change, especially in the form of deforestation, is the second largest source of carbon dioxide emissions from human activities, after the burning of fossil fuels.
Rainforests once covered 14% of the earth's land surface; now they cover a mere 6% and experts estimate that the last remaining rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years. [294] Small scale deforestation was practiced by some societies for tens of thousands of years before the beginnings of civilization. [ 295 ]
Currently, livestock make up 60% of the biomass of all mammals on earth, followed by humans (36%) and wild mammals (4%). [29] According to the 2019 global biodiversity assessment by IPBES, human civilization has pushed one million species of plants and animals to the brink of extinction, with many of these projected to vanish over the next few ...
[10] NASA plays a critical role in providing the scientific data necessary for understanding and addressing climate change globally. Through missions like GRACE, ICESat, and Sentinel-6, NASA documents crucial changes in the Earth's ice sheets and sea levels, offering invaluable insights for both mitigation and adaptation efforts. Although not ...
It is considered likely that hitting 3.5 °C (6.3 °F) of global warming would trigger the collapse of rainforest to savannah over the course of around a century (50-200) years, although it occur at between 2 °C (3.6 °F) to 6 °C (11 °F) of warming. [78] [79] Forest fires in Indonesia have dramatically increased since 1997 as well. These ...
Probably the most profound impact that habitat destruction has on people is the loss of many valuable ecosystem services. Habitat destruction has altered nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, and carbon cycles , which has increased the frequency and severity of acid rain , algal blooms , and fish kills in rivers and oceans and contributed tremendously ...
Tropical rainforests have been called the "jewels of the Earth" and the "world's largest pharmacy", because over one quarter of natural medicines have been discovered there. [2] Rainforests as well as endemic rainforest species are rapidly disappearing due to deforestation, the resulting habitat loss and pollution of the atmosphere. [3]
It is important to conserve the rainforest because many resources for things we use everyday come from the rainforest, including rubber for tires and spices such as cinnamon and many other common items. [9] It is imperative to life on earth that the rainforest be conserved, as the trees take in carbon dioxide to provide oxygen.