I recently watched the Michael Jackson movie This Is It, which was based on the rehearsal of a concert that never came. In one of the themes for a song, a little native girl is shown trying to escape a bulldozer that’s destroying the land she lives in. This scene in particular reminded Me of Cameron’s movie, which presents a similar vignette.
It occured to me that these movies are really onto something. Certainly, we’ve heard about a myriad environmental issues, from green house gases to the proposed grove of windmills on Nantucket Sound. And we’ve also heard about the rain forest, but more specifically, it’s really—truly—about time deforestation is put back into the spot light. If things don’t change soon, we will be finishing up some very dark work humanity has started. With no forests like the Amazon, our ecosytem will suffer irreversible damage, and we, as living creatures on this planet, will certainly feel the impact.
Thanks to the increasing demands for resources and capitalist interests, world deforestation is increasing at a staggering pace. What was once two basic needs for land clearing: crops and livestock, has now extended to the demands of a highly industrialized and global humanity. Economic globalization is hammering down on our forests from population growth, poverty, greed, rise in agricultural and lumber needs, infrastructure expansion, and so on. The consequences of this destruction is both environmental and social.
Deforestation is responsible for soil erosion, water scarcity, flooding and drought, in addition to climate change where upward of 20 percent of global carbon emissions are emitted into the air from deforestation alone, some studies say. Though the effect of rotting vegetation can produce coal in years ahead, this serves as little condolence to the indigenous tribes and settlers who have come to respect the land they depend upon. How stressful it must feel to have no control against their own government and the more influential countries who, having used up their own resources, now turn to your back yard to cut, burn and drill.
You can help stop this by supporting organizations who follow environmental friendly policies or by lending your support to advocates of land conservation. You can further help by being energy efficient. Don’t use electrical appliances for things you can easily do by hand, like opening cans. Save wire coat hangers and return them to the dry cleaners. Store food in re-usable containers, instead of plastic wrap or aluminum foil. Set your water heater at 130 degrees, and have your water heater insulated free of charge by your utility company. Turn your heat down and wear a sweater, or lower your thermostat by one degree per hour for every hour you’ll be away or asleep. Turn off the lights, TV, or other electrical appliances when you’re out of a room. You can find more ideas here at savetherainforest.org.
You can also help by sending your monetary donations here.
Tags: environment, female leadership
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Thank You for this passionate, and informative warning. It shows how clever and loving You are. i already follow some of Your and the site’s suggestions – some are also economically rewarding for those who take them seriously. But i will do more, also reducing the paper waste when i print documents i could simply read on the PC.
i wish You a happy and dominant New Year, Goddess Saharah!
kneeling nothing
Thank you. The key is to stay mindful and proactive. Together, if we make even just small changes to conserve resources, collectively that can make a world of difference.
And Happy New Year to you too, kn.
i agree! Although i am convinced that, if everyone does use a lot of resources, small changes produce – alas – little effects. Still, it is right and good to be mindful and to spread good habits. On the long term, there has to be some qualitative change, saving energy at home is by far not enough, as it is not enough the exploitation of renewable energy, which has to be maximized anyway. So in my view it will be progress that will enable us to cope with the climate challenge, and not the refusal of progress in science and technology.
Here’s a big enough effect for Me.
If every household in the U.S. replaced a burned-out bulb with an energy-efficient, ENERGY STAR qualified compact fluorescent bulb, the cumulative effect is enormous. It would prevent greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to that from nearly 800,000 cars. It would also save enough energy to light 2.5 million homes for a year.
If one in 10 households serviced heating and cooling systems annually, cleaned or replaced filters regularly, used a programmable thermostat and replaced old equipment with ENERGY STAR models it would prevent the emissions of more than 17 billion pounds of greenhouse gases.
Simple changes, significant effects! Though not a panacea, it’s a good start that a lot of people haven’t started on at all. Thanks for responding back to this thread, btw.
Definitively the more I read You, Saharah Eve, more I love You. Civilized (domesticated) humans don’t understand that when they kill forests they kill the future of their children. Since it’s beginning agriculture is the process of turning rich and fertile forest into sterile waste land and desert. It’s a dead end. The whole agriculture concept is flawed in many way the most obvious one is that the relation between food and population is put in reverse order. They want produce food to follow population growth but the natural laws say «population grow as food supply» so they are doomed, they will collapse in one generation by starvation and resource plundering.
This global civilization (city based culture) is incompatible with life on this planet. You are right when You said that is not a panacea but at least if we can slow down the Sixth mass Extinction, this is at least something good. As You said, significant effects! Ultimately this culture of death will have to collapse, and humans will have to return to the only sustainable path, the path set by Mother Earth since the beginning of time. Otherwise homo sapiens will die. Period.