Sunday, January 14, 2018

The Forest People

Forests account for nearly 30 percent of the world’s surface. That’s a staggering 3.04 trillion trees. 

 The world's forests continue to shrink, cut for timber and converted to farms for soybean, palm oil, and other food resources.
An estimated 18 million acres of forest—an area roughly the size of Panama—are lost each year. 
At the current rate of deforestation, the world’s rainforests will begin to disappear within the next 100 years.
Imagine a world without trees. The results are alarming. In addition to flash floods and food shortages, humanity would also have to deal with widespread animal extinctions, accelerating climate change and the loss of materials.


2 comments:

Trevor Goodger-Hill said...

I am glad that my money is plastic -- either credit card or folding notes. If it were still paper money the trees would be gone in no time -- not enough left to pay America's multi-trillion dollar debt.

On a more inquisitive note, the item doesn't indicate the source of these very believable statistics. Any relative reasonably accessible source?

ajohnstone said...

I really should remember to post the source
https://www.alternet.org/environment/what-planet-would-be-without-trees

The link to deforestation is there

The 3 trillion tree number is here

http://earthsky.org/earth/earth-has-3-trillion-trees-says-study