Is Our Planet Dying?

There is, no doubt, a tendency among people to think in fairly apocalyptic terms, and to exaggerate matters in order to get more people to pay more attention. In this respect, how much attention should we pay when people assert that our planet is dying, and we will all be in trouble if we do not make changes? It is hard to say. Certainly, we have finite resources to rely on and, if we do not find a way to live without taking more out of the planet, there is only one way things can go.

The fact of the matter is that the world is highly unlikely to end while any one of us is still on the planet. In that light, it can be hard to get people to pay attention to the threat that faces our planet. It is a very real threat, but our children probably won’t see it happen, and nor will theirs. It is hard to personalize something that will not be experienced by anyone we know, or anyone we are likely to meet.

However, it is fair to imagine how we would feel if the planet were on the brink of a wide-ranging environmental disaster – something which would happen in the next few weeks or years – and the people who lived about five hundred years ago could have done something to stop it happening. We would not be pleased, and we would blame them for not doing more. We are on warning here – the more trees we lose, the harder the world will have to work to make up for their absence. It is not sustainable, and we have to do more to stop things from becoming apocalyptic.

The Enviro-Skeptic Movement

During the late 80s and much of the 90s, it was fashionable to be green – to the extent that it became a celebrity movement and environmentalist political parties started making big breakthroughs worldwide. Recently, it has become fashionable to reject the green message, and claim that the threat to our planet is grossly exaggerated. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the climate change debate. While environmentalists consider climate change to be man-made, a serious threat and preventable, it is now almost equally common to hear people refer to it as a “swindle”.

Although the initial target of the skeptics has been climate change, the overall skeptic movement has now become wider, and is equally capable of diminishing the importance of pollution and deforestation. For the world to progress, they argue, it is important to make sacrifices, and while it is nice to have areas of natural beauty and a thriving ecosystem, some compromises are necessary when it comes to our environment. By dubbing the environmental movement as reactionaries and regressive, they create a situation where people are reluctant to speak out.

It should not be ignored that many of the “scientific” studies that diminish the effect of deforestation have been commissioned and funded by the very businesses who stand to gain most by the continuing plunder of our natural resources. Their short-termist attitude to the environment is financially supported by the fact that once the money is banked, it will take years for the real toll on the environment to be obvious to all. In this light, it has to be accepted that being called a “nutjob” is a small price to pay for the health of our planet and our people in years to come.

What Can One Person Do To Save Forests?

The issue of deforestation is one that is not easy to separate from emotions. When a forest is cleared, it is not only the trees that are removed from that area, but also the species of wildlife who make their home in that area. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that creeping deforestation is risking the extinction of several endangered species – and against the power of big business, it is easy to come to the conclusion that we as individuals are powerless. What can we do to prevent the environmental disaster that seems to be unfolding before our eyes?

It is true that big business has a major advantage over the individual and over the environmental movement in terms of the battle around deforestation. Big business can pay for what it is doing and paint the environmental movement as being unreasonable and anti-progress. It is fashionable to be skeptical about the threat to our environment. But there is so much at stake here that we need to be ready to stand up to such slurs. By awareness campaigns it is possible to expose the worst offenders, and cause them to consider the damage they are potentially doing to their bottom line.

If enough people make clear that the ongoing health of the planet is a much greater concern than being able to source cheap meat for hamburgers then companies will have to consider that they risk alienating their target consumers. One person cannot do much against a huge company, but by working together it is possible to keep the best interests of our planet firmly in the public view and ensure its continuing protection.

Why Is Deforestation An Issue?

One of the most divisive issues facing the human race today is that of the environment. On one side of the debate there are environmentalists who feel that the planet needs all the help it can get if it is to continue supporting the ever-increasing population of the world, while on the other there are people who claim that the environmental movement is grossly exaggerating problems that are actually well within the control of society and business. Among the major environmental issues that cause such arguments is deforestation, the loss or destruction of forests for a range of reasons.

From an environmental point of view, the loss of these trees is an important issue because forests are an essential part of our environment. They are the natural habitat of numerous species of animal, birds and other life forms. Not only that, but trees are vitally important for what they give human beings – they absorb carbon dioxide and give out oxygen. In a world where carbon is considered to be responsible for a range of problems, trees are a valuable line of defence.

Those on the other side of the debate will argue that the problems of deforestation are grossly exaggerated and that the removal of forests on a manageable scale is essential for the progress of business, farming and accommodation. What cannot be denied is that there is an increasing tendency, for PR reasons, for business and other concerns to try and diminish the issue of deforestation by claiming that the scale is smaller than it really is, and that the level of deforestation is easily supportable. This is a dangerous path to take – forests removed cannot be easily replaced.

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