Deforestation and forest burning in Amazonia contributes to the warming of the planet.

Global warming will be an environmental disaster for us all. We have a responsibility to conserve the rainforest as one of the measures to halt global warming.
Global warming is possibly the single greatest threat ever to the future of life on the planet. Its ultimate consequences have been compared by eminent scientists at the 1988 Toronto Conference on the Changing Atmosphere as “second only to a global nuclear war”. Existing legal mechanisms and institutions are inadequate to control global warming.’ Human actions are altering the global environment in ways that have many unknown implications. With increasing human population, consumption and trade the impacts of these actions will grow.
It is now universally recognised that our planet is warming up and that this could have disastrous consequences. Since 1988 government leaders have sponsored a forum of scientific experts known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This panel of experts has produced incontrovertible evidence on global warming and has pointed out the dangers it poses for our future well-being and for that of the planet’s environment. Today global warming is mainly the result of modern development. Human beings have messed up their own atmosphere but they also have the solution for putting it right.
People in Britain will have experienced another long hot and dry summer. This is now a regular occurrence. Since 1980 we have experienced ten of the warmest years this century. According to the World Meteorological Organisation, 1995 was recorded as the hottest year. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has stated the rate of warming will probably be ‘greater than any seen in the last 10,000 years’. The global temperature is projected to rise by 2.05°C by the year 2100.
Ecosystems will find it hard to adapt to these rapid changes. Rising temperatures are likely to lead to more floods and droughts. Snow and ice cover in the Northern hemisphere and Arctic is melting rapidly. According to Greenpeace, the Bering Glacier has thinned by almost 600 feet in the past 50 years. As a result of melting glaciers and the thermal expansion of the oceans there will be a massive rise in global sea levels. What is certain is that the rise in sea levels will be a threat to islands and many countries, like Bangladesh, whose geography puts them at particular risk. As a result a huge loss of life is predicted.
Some scientists even predict that due to the forecasted increases in temperatures in Northern Europe, as a consequence of global warming, tropical diseases such as cholera, maleria and leishmaniasis could become widespread. In 1991 an outbreak of cholera in Peru is attributed to the warming of coastal waters and the increased dumping of phosphate and nitrate wastes. These factors are believed to have aided the growth of algae which acts as a host to the cholera bacteria. A recent increase in malaria cases in New York has also concerned scientists about the possible effects of global warming. (from Independent, 26.9.97, which cites a report by Profs Tony McMichael and Andrew Haines from their article in the British Medical Journal)
Understandably, most public interest is directed at how global change will affect our immediate environment. Nevertheless, the nature of modern economies requires a global perspective. Agriculture and the food processing industry are increasingly sensitive to environmental changes on a worldwide basis, via effects on commodity prices. The insurance and underwriting business similarly operates on the global scale.
For the financial sector generally, investment returns are calculated over very long time horizons, for example with regard to pension funds. So global warming will hit the average person in their pocket.
The greenhouse effect causes global warming. Greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide) are produced both naturally and by humans. The earth’s natural greenhouse effect traps some of the sun’s heat in the lower atmosphere, without this heat the earth would be a cold and barren place. Problems arose with the greenhouse effect when modern society started to produce massive amounts of energy through the burning of fossil fuels and when forests are cut and cleared, this greatly increased the level of greenhouse gases. As a result more of the sun’s heat is being trapped near the earth’s surface. This trapped heat has in turn led to higher temperatures and rising sea levels. Direct attribution of these temperature changes to human activities is complicated by the fact that climate varies naturally from year to year and from decade to decade. Long term human-induced warming has to be distinguished against this natural background. Although we do not have data reaching back many hundreds of years, by comparing observations of global mean temperatures with natural variability estimated from climate models, we find the warming has, over the past couple of decades, extended beyond the bounds of our estimates of natural variability.
As the Government’s chief scientific adviser says, quite small changes can have a large but difficult to predict, influence on local climate change. Conversely, it is possible that small changes in regional climate could result in large and possibly abrupt, changes in ocean circulation patterns. All this introduces major uncertainties, particularly at the regional level. Such change could modify the fluid dynamics which ultimately drive the Gulf Stream which transports towards the British Isles ‘free’ heat which amounts to 27,000 times the total power generation capacity of the UK! The possibility that this might be significantly reduced, much less turned off, is an awesome prospect.
Cutting down on the emission of these dangerous gases makes sense and can be achieved through global agreement. In 1992 at the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development it was recognised that the issue of global warming was central to the sustainable development of the planet. International agreements on measures to stop global warming were discussed at a summit in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997.
The future development of the Amazon rainforest was important to this summit. Deforestation in the Amazon is a major concern. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has reported that changes in tropical land use are responsible for 15 per cent of man-made greenhouse gas emissions (man-made emissions are referred to as anthropogenic emissions). The Amazon rainforest also plays an important role in absorbing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Sustainable methods of development in Amazonia, which allow the conservation of much of the rainforest, will make an important contribution towards solving the problem of global warming.
The future of our planet is at stake and we need to take preventative measures now. Coming to an agreement continues to be a difficult task. Many developing countries, such as Brazil, believe that the developed world is at an advantage and that restrictions of greenhouse gas emissions will slow down much-needed development in their countries. This is an understandable concern but the problem of global warming remains a global priority not least because developing countries could face the most destructive effects. Western countries therefore have a moral responsibility to fully involve developing countries in the decision-making processes. Probably the best solution would be the monitoring and enforcement of a global emissions policy carried out under the auspices of the United Nations.
The results of the Kyoto summit reveal that major developed countries such as the USA are not taking the threat of global warming seriously enough. They are putting the short-term interests of their industrial development before the long-term interests of the planet and humanity as a whole. We cannot afford to wait for the link between greenhouse gases and climate change to be conclusively proven. We cannot and should not wait until the worst effects of global warming are upon us before we act. We must take immediate precautionary measures now if we are to avoid a global disaster.