Essay 1 Cause/Effect-Rainforest Deforestation Effect: Losing Earth’s Lungs

Following the tree trunks into the canopy that covers the forest. Bright green leaves begin to shake and down the leaves drift into a pile layering the ground floor. The chainsaw in the background begins cutting through the tree tell it meets its destination along the fallen leaves; clearing the land of its skyscrapers to make room for cattle and crops. Already 247,105,381 acres have been cleared for agriculture purposes (Malhado, 2010). Although the Amazon rainforest makes good land for agriculture, deforestation will cause devastating climate change because of the rising carbon dioxide levels, drought, and death of an ecosystem.

The Amazon Rainforest is well known for being Earth’s lungs. The rainforest produces 20 percent of the Earths oxygen and it also reduces the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (Williamson, 2001). The rainforest has been eating away at our carbon dioxide emissions and has been slowing down the effects of global warming (Hashimoto, 2010). But do to the slaughter of the rainforest carbon dioxide levels have increased in the past 30 years (Hashimoto, 2010). Some humans seem to find that this has little effect on us now so they continue to destroy what has actually been saving us.

Higher carbon dioxide levels means that the soil moister levels decrease and that leads to less rainfall which could be because of the higher temperatures that carbon dioxide produces (Hashimoto 2010). Not only do humans produce carbon dioxide and release it into our atmosphere, but they also produce drought by cutting down the rainforest to make room for our needs which breeds carbon dioxide into the air (Williamson, 2001). I can’t even begin to describe the big picture of how truly devastating this particular climate change is to our atmosphere. It is a never ending circle that goes round and round, of drought causing carbon dioxide to carbon dioxide causing drought.

The rainforest is characterized and named by the huge amounts of rainfall it is supposed to procure on a regular basis, but consequently, as a result of deforestation, drought has ensued. The decline of rainfall makes the rainforest less humid and as a result produces higher temperatures (Williamson, 2001). A place usually ruled by rain now devastated by drought makes the perfect breeding ground for a fire to spread. It is a widely known thing that most farmers use a burning method to clear their fields of unwanted debris from harvest. This can lead to a fire raging out of control and destroying more of the rainforest, not to mention the smoke that these fires produce create a cloud cover over the forest (Williamson, 2001). Cloud cover can be described as smog in the cities. The fires that produce cloud cover is very serious as it further contributes to the drought by trapping moisture and suppressing the raindrops from forming (Williamson, 2001).

The long term effects of carbon dioxide build up and drought have on the rainforests ecosystem is a whole different story. We are no longer talking about the effects that agriculture plays in the atmosphere change, but what it does as a whole to the rainforest. The drought has caused little to no soil water. This means the plants and animals are not getting adequate hydration causing the premature death to everything in the rainforest that needs water (Williamson, 2001).

All of the climate change that has been going on due to the lack of rain water  is because trees do not get the amount of rain water they need to survive; they must sacrifice what they cannot sustain. The trees slowly give away their leaves creating an open canopy in which many rainforest animals live (Williamson, 2001). With an open canopy it leaves the rainforest vulnerable to high winds that can bring in non-native plant species (Murphy, 2008). The invasive plant species steal resources from the native plant species creating an imbalance inside the rainforest (Murphy, 2008). Cyclones, or big gusts of wind that flow in a circular motion, do more damage that just spreading foreign seeds, they also rip branches off of trees, sometimes taking the whole tree with it (Murphy, 2008). This just creates more dried rot on the forests floor. The rainforest animals and plants, that cannot be found any other forest, our going to run into great difficulty trying to adapt to the ever changing environment that they have been plagued by (Malhado,2010). Some of the rare and endangered species will fall short and we will miss out on the great wonders that earth has given us, who knows what loss one animal or one plant species will have on the world.

It is a great eye opener to see how one simple thing, clearing the land for agriculture, can effect so much. It is like a set of dominos set up in a circle, forever falling down. With carbon dioxide linking to drought and then the effects the drought cause leading to fire and wind, which ultimately destroys an ecosystem, with a destroyed ecosystem leading to carbon dioxide outputs. I could continue but it would be never ending. We only need to give it a few more decades before our earth’s lungs have taken in their last breath.

               

References

Hashimoto, H., Melton, F. lchii, K., Milesi, C., Weile, W., and Nemani, R.R.(2010). Evaluating the Impacts of Climate and Elevated Carbon Dioxide on Tropical Rainforests of the Western Amazon basin Using Ecosystem Models and Satellite Data. Global Change Biology, 16(1), 255-271. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2009.01921.x

Lawrence W. Williamson G. (2001). Positive Feedback Among Forest Fragmentation, Drought, and Climate Change in the Amazon. Conservation Biology, 15(6): 1529-1535. doi: 10.1046/j.1523-1739.2001.01093.x

Malhado, A., Pires, G., and Costa, m. (2010). Cerrado Conservation is Essential to Protect the Amazon Rainforest. AMBIO-A Journal of the Human Environment, 30(9), 580-584. doi: 10.1007/s13280-010-0084-6

Murphy H.T., Metcalfe, D.J. Bradford, M.G., Ford, A.F., Galway, K.E., Sydes, T.A., and Westcott, D.J. (2008). Recruitment Dynamics of Invasive Species in Rainforest Habitats Following Cyclone Larry. Austral Ecology, 33(4), 495-502. doi: 10.1111/ j.1442-9993.2008.01904.x