How deforestation causes global warming and negatively impacts the environment

In the past deforestation was not a big issue, but today, due to the world growing so rapidly and the human population constantly rising, deforestation has become a global issue particularly in our rainforests. The rapid and immense growths in the human population lead the government to wonder how it was possible to accommodate all of the new families and grow businesses. The “ solution” that the government inducted to fix this problem was deforestation. The impacts of deforestation include: cutting down rainforests, cattle ranching and logging are harsh on the environment by promoting climate change, endangering species, and spreading invasive species.

Trees tend to play a large role in the carbon cycle of our planet. Forests are an important factor in controlling carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because the millions of trees that inhabit our forests absorb the carbon dioxide emitted into the air. This is the reason being why the termination of our forests leads to an amassed rise of carbon pollution in the Earth’s atmosphere. “ Carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to recent climate change” (“ Causes of Climate Change”, 2). Although carbon dioxide is a natural part of the life cycle on Earth, the increase of this greenhouse gas in the atmosphere has caused the overuse of trapped energy from the sun, causing temperatures to rise only to contribute to the result of our Earth’s major climate change. The warming of the atmosphere has been causing glaciers to melt and sea levels to rise, causing floods to more frequent and becoming more treacherous. The results of glaciers melting, forces animal species in the Arctic to become extinct and/or further endangered.

Cattle ranching in rainforests is not a new concept, in fact, it has been recognized for decades, but only recently has cattle ranching grown into leading cause of deforestation around the globe. Cattle ranching provides the food industry with a vast availability of meat for the distribution of beef for restaurants and butchers in pursuance to keep up with the strict demand of food. The majority of the cattle ranching industry can be found in rainforests by reason of the substantial amount of space that is available in order accommodate the measure of land needed to obtain a successful ranch. In order to have a successful cattle ranch, you require flat land to place the cattle, and to achieve flat land, a rancher needs to go through the process of deforestation. Rainforests happen to be “ home to much of the world’s biodiversity” (“ Deforestation”, 1) and is also home to “ the world’s most threatened and endangered animals” (Deforestation”, 1). The practice of deforestation in rainforests, “ threatens a wide range of plant and animal species” (“ Deforestation”, 1) which will proceed to accelerate the extinction of endangered plants and animals and that significantly affects an entire ecosystem. Without any change to the current rate of deforestation, the existence of our rainforests “ could be reduced [by] approximately 50% by 2050” (Longobardi et al. 2).

Timber from a tree is prepared by logging; the timber then can be used to build everyday essentials such as: homes, furniture, and paper. Timber can also be used as fuel for cooking as well as providing heat for homes. In order to manufacture these wooden products, undergoing the deforestation process is clearly, quite inevitable. Selective logging is a method that loggers use when they only want a specific type of wood. The practice of selective logging negatively impacts the biodiversity among the trees in the rainforests. Our rainforests “ attain the highest level of biodiversity of any terrestrial ecosystem” (Cazzola Gatti et al. 120), in turn, that means that there are diverse amounts of species living in the forests.

An invasive species is a plant, fungus, or animal species that is not native to a specific location… and which has a tendency to spread to a degree believed to cause damage to the environment, human economy or human health (“ Invasive Species”, 1). In the case of deforestation, species such as: parasites, insects, plants, and fungi, get introduced into a new environment through the transportation of lumber on a logging truck. The migration of the now invasive species brings alarm to humans about their health. “ For humans, one of the most dangerous effects of invasive alien species is as a carrier of disease” (“ Invasive Alien Species”, 1).