It was surprising to learn....


It was surprising to learn that ecological destruction by human actions is not something new in our current era of anthropogenic climate change that threatens the very existence of life on earth. Thus, while agriculture saw an enormous advance in ancient Mesopotamia, it came at the cost of the eventual destruction of that very agriculture. Thus, in order to grow crops, deforestation cleared the land for agriculture, but this ultimately led to soil erosion. In addition, the advanced technique of irrigation led to salination  of the land and loss of its fertility.
Beeing from Brazil I can relate to this. They burning the Amazon Forest in order to grow crops and to drill for oil and to mine minerals, the Amazon Forest is important to the world as a sink for carbon dioxide. Loss of this sink will make climate change worse.

Satellite images show devastating Amazon rainforest fire ...

Comments

  1. almaruelasworldhistoryblogMay 24, 2020 at 5:44 PM

    I enjoy reading your post and the great illustration that you included caught my attention. I agree with you that ecological deforestation is not something new, and I am sure it has happened for many years in different countries. It made me think of the industrial revolution when there was so much pollution and people thought it should have no consequences. I´d wonder if global warming has been an accumulation of centuries of constant contamination of our planet?

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  2. ThistoryMay 24, 2020 at 10:52 PM

    I thought the same. It was surprising to know that ecological destruction is not new. And I also realized that the price of "progress" is very high. The more people, the more the need to exploit nature. Now we can see that we continue on the same path and although we already see a lot of damage, it does not seem to end. I liked your picture. I also enjoyed reading your post. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  3. LeslieMay 24, 2020 at 11:20 PM

    I had some of those same thoughts reading through this section. I think the difference for me is people now know what this destruction is doing to our people, planet, and fellow animals.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sarita Mazer LopezMay 25, 2020 at 2:55 PM

    You are right, Claudia, I read that section quickly and missed connecting with our Beautiful Amazon Forest, the largest rain forest in the world. The forest is important to regulate the world's oxygen and carbon cycles. Some facts I found on Study.com were:

    *The Amazon has lost about 20% of its area in the last 30-40 years.
    *Brazil alone loses an area of land about the size of Delaware every single year to deforestation.

    https://study.com/academy/lesson/amazon-rainforest-deforestation-facts-statistics.html

    ReplyDelete

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