Burning forests and melting glaciers, where does that put us as human beings?

These are some warm times indeed, political inferno, socio-economic heat ups and soon a “burnt up” planet. The global warming phenomenon has been a very hot topic in the recent decades and with good reason. In most recent news burning forests have come to light but not with the greatest attention. Brazil’s Amazon forest has been inundated with dark smokey blazes. further to this,our weather has not been its finest this year with the recent abnormal heat waves.

The Amazon has been on fire , not something new though, wildfires are common during dry seasons and are in fact very important for the growth of forests. within limit, only within the limits the planets system creates are these fires beneficial, however if changes to natural phenomena occur those limits could be crossed. large rainforest loss as well as drastic weather changes have doubled the occurrence of wildfires for some good years now. Most of these changes in wildfire occurrence are due to anthropological interference, one of the Amazons biggest concerns is deforestation and in connection to recent fires, most of the fires created have been known to be one of the methods driving deforestation activities.

“Over the past three decades, wildfires in the region have increased in size and frequency, causing major socio-ecological disturbance. In future, development trajectories and climate change interactions are expected to amplify favourable conditions for increased wildfire risk in Amazonia”

Devisscher, T., Malhi, Y. and Boyd, E., 2019. Deliberation for wildfire risk management: Addressing conflicting views in the Chiquitania, Bolivia. The Geographical Journal, 185(1), pp.38-54.

The Amazon forest, one of our largest forest ecosystem boasting with the richest and most unique biodiversity is home to over millions of species, in addition it houses over 300 ethnic communities. those communities and species depend on the forests network for survival however its not just them who do…we all do. “Shes” what we call in metaphorical terms “our lungs” Can you live without your lungs? of course not, that is why we take care of them so why not our forests?

I won’t bore you with a science lesson on greenhouse gases or global warming, reason being that we should all have already been clued up about this. Are our education systems doing enough, news coverage on these issues barely touch the surface. Most of what we learn and read from media and education do not highlight these issues enough. Are we living sustainably? how can we if we do not learn how to.

One of the challenges is how the relationship with man and the environment has developed over the years particularly the dependency of man on the environment. With our evolving industries and economy more resources are required to fuel the longevity of these two evolving sectors. Although in hand with this, the more damage imposed onto the environment the more the environment physically changes in response to the damage, responses such as flooding, drought and wildfires. These reactions can inversely affect the people and unfortunately the poor communities since they do not have the economic status to back them up.

We live with the environment, within the environment and hence our interactions with the environment needs to be managed appropriately so that we don’t hinder the sustainability of the environment for us and the future.

We are taught from kids by many superheros that “with great power comes great responsibility” We understand consequences, we have the empathetic ability to feel responsibility and guilt. We are all made up well with the ability to destroy our home and ignore responsibility but we are made up perfectly to face reality and fix our attitude towards our responsibility as residents on this planet.

I am not attacking a government, scolding a community or blaming a sector. I simply hope to highlight reality with hope that YOU, the person reading this re-think their responsibility as a human being living on the only habitable, generous planet.

A way to heal yourself is to heal your home, our planet.