On a related, subject: Is there anyone here who thinks the destruction of the rain forest is in any way worrisome? Or, does anyone have any upbeat thoughts on the subject to share?
-The deforestation rate in the Brazilian Amazon, the largest stretch of forest in the world, has increased by 40% in the past year...
-According to estimates, 20% of the world's oxygen is produced in the Amazon Rainforest.
-Two-thirds of the Earth's fresh water is found in the Amazon River basin...
-70% of the plants currently found to be active against cancers come from the rainforests.
-Over 120 prescription drugs and 25% of all pharmaceuticals originate from rainforest materials.
-80% of all fruits and vegetables in our modern diet originated there.
-The rainforest is so rich with life,that less than one percent of its three hundred thousand plant species have even been studied by scientists.
-One rainforest plant, the Madagascar Periwinkle (now extinct in the wild), has produced a drug that increases the survival rate in children with leukemia from 20% to 80%. How many lives have been saved by this one plant? How many more can be saved by other plants that grow only in the rainforests?
needham.mec.edu
Global Rates of Destruction
2.4 acres (1 hectare) per second: equivalent to two U.S. football fields
149 acres (60 hectares) per minute
214,000 acres (86,000 hectares) per day: an area larger than New York City
78 million acres (31 million hectares) per year: an area larger than Poland
While you were reading the above statistics, approximately 149 acres of rainforest were destroyed. [Distinguished scientists estimate an average of 137 species of life forms are driven into extinction every day; or 50,000 each year.]
If deforestation continues at current rates, scientists estimate nearly all tropical rainforest ecosystems will be destroyed by the year 2030....
ran.org |
