Rainforest Destruction Quotes

Why is it that no one is excited? I hear people talking in the laundromat about the end of the world, and they're no more excited than if they were comparing detergents. People talk about the destruction of the ozone layer and the death of all life. They talk about the devastation of the rainforests, about deadly pollution that will be with us for thousands and millions of years, about the disappearance of dozens of species of life every day, about the end of speciation itself. And they seem perfectly calm.

REVIEW: Like a master artisan, Weisberger weaves together threads of anthropology, botany, ecology and psychology in an inspiring tapestry of ideas sure to keep discerning readers warm and hopeful in these cold and desolate times.Unlike other texts, which ordinarily prescribe structural (ie. social, political, economic) solutions to the global crisis of environmental destruction, Rainforest Medicine hones in on the root cause of Western schizophrenia: spiritual poverty, and the resultant alienation of the individual from his environment. This incisive perception is married to a message of hope: that the keys to the door leading to promising new human vistas are held in the humblest of hands; those of the spiritual masters of the Amazon and the traditional cultures from which they hail. By illumining the ancient practices of authentic indigenous Amazonian shamanism, Weisberger supplies us with a manual for conservation of both the rainforest and the soul. And frankly, it could not have arrived at a better time.

Humans possess no monopoly on the powers of preservation and destruction. Our ability to wield these powers with sustained intent, however, is unmatched on this earth. Nature can trump us in an instance or over millenia, but in the day-to-day main, humankind has developed a preponderant ability to fiddle with destiny. More than any other natural force or creature, we decide what will go and what will stay: the rainforest, an old building, a sickly cat... ourselves.

The marketplace has many similarities to nature's rainforest and oceanic ecosystems. Left to their own devices, the marketplace and the earth's ecosystems are self-regulating. Neither requires our forceful intervention to establish a holistic balance in which a diversity of complimentary niches can evolve. Aggression in the marketplace or destruction in a natural ecosystem upsets this balance. Some of the niches are destroyed along with their occupants. Diversity is lost.

When Dennis McKenna drank ayahuasca , he had a vision in which he became “a sentient water molecule, percolating randomly through the soil, lost amid the tangle of the enormous root fibers of the Banisteriopsis World Tree.” I could feel the coolness, the dank dampness of the soil surrounding me. I felt suspended in an enormous underground cistern, a single drop among billions of drops … as if squeezed by the implacable force of irresistible osmotic pressures, I was rapidly translocated into the roots of the Banisteriopsis tree …” He was “carried through the articulating veins toward some unknown destination”. McKenna found himself within the extraordinary cellular mechanisms that turn light into “the molecular stuff of life”. Pulled on a kind of conveyor belt to the place where photosynthesis occurs. His consciousness exploded as he was “smited by the bolt of energy emitted by the phytic acid transducers and my poor water-molecule soul was split asunder”. As this vision ended, he found himself “embedded in the matrix” of the plant’s biochemical makeup. Suddenly he was suspended above the Amazon rainforest, looking over its vast expanse: “The vista stretching to the curved horizon was blue and green and bluish green, the vegetation below, threaded with shining rivers, looked like green mold covering an overgrown petri plate.” McKenna felt: “anger and rage toward my own rapacious, destructive species, scarcely aware of its own devastating power, a species that cares little about the swath of destruction it leaves in its wake as it thoughtlessly decimates ecosystems and burns thousands of acres of rainforest.” He wept. Suddenly a voice spoke to him: “You monkeys only think you’re running things. You don’t think we would really allow this to happen, do you?

Nature or Pachamama ["Mother Universe"] has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and processes in evolution. The State will apply precaution and restrictive measures in all activities that can lead to the extinction of species, the destruction of ecosystems or the permanent alteration of natural cycles. Persons, people, communities and nationalities have the right to benefit from the environment and from natural wealth that allows well-being. -First, fourth, and fifth articles concerning rights of nature in Ecuador's new constitution, adopted in 2009

As long as people and institutions are allowed to profit from land at the expense of other people, we're enabling a system that incentivizes the destruction of our own habitat. This happens in three ways: First, since human beings are allowed to profit not only from their goods and services but also from nature, we encourage the pillaging of nature. Second, because our ability to profit from land at the expense of our communities is firmly entrenched in our economic system, and as a result existing land is priced far above its actual value, the cost of living is significantly higher than it should be. This forces human beings to extend themselves and their economic activities far beyond levels actually necessary to support their ongoing existence. Third, our current model of land ownership encourages a sprawl of human civilization as populations seek out land that's still available at a lesser cost. In the areas where rainforest destruction is epidemic, wealth inequality and land ownership rates are particularly disproportionate; millions of acres of prime farmland are owned by a few, while the many are forced to slash and burn large areas of rainforest just to make a living by other means.

Rainforest destruction was invariably justified by those who profited as a necessary evil, an engine of wealth that would lift all boats. But what most people got instead was a host of other consequences—exploding vampire bat populations, poisoned rivers, the spread of rabies and malaria, and a deepening drought that was blistering the trees, frying the jungle. Wildfires never before seen had come to the Amazon. *

Knowing more about the rainforests is not just entertaining or educational, but is also an essential part of understanding how our planet works and why the destruction of these precious environments impacts us all.

In Brazil, the rainforests of the Amazon are being destroyed at an alarming rate by bulldozing and burning. There are many excellent reasons to prevent this continuing – loss of habitat for organisms, production of carbon dioxide from burning trees, destruction of the culture of native Indian tribes, and so on. What is not a good reason, though, is the phrase that is almost inevitably trotted out, to the effect that the rainforests are the ‘lungs of the planet’. The image here is that the ‘civilized’ regions – that is, the industrialized ones – are net producers of carbon dioxide. The pristine rainforest, in contrast, produces a gentle but enormous oxygen breeze, while absorbing the excess carbon dioxide produced by all those nasty people with cars. It must do, surely? A forest is full of plants, and plants produce oxygen. No, they don’t. The net oxygen production of a rainforest is, on average, zero. Trees produce carbon dioxide at night, when they are not photosynthesizing. They lock up oxygen and carbon into sugars, yes – but when they die, they rot, and release carbon dioxide. Forests can indirectly remove carbon dioxide by removing carbon and locking it up as coal or peat, and by releasing oxygen into the atmosphere. Ironically, that’s where a lot of the human production of carbon dioxide comes from – we dig it up and burn it again, using up the same amount of oxygen. If the theory that oil is the remains of plants from the carboniferous period is true, then our cars are burning up carbon that was once laid down by plants. Even if an alternative theory, growing in popularity, is true, and oil was produced by bacteria, then the problem remains the same. Either way, if you burn a rainforest you add a one-off surplus of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, but you do not also reduce the Earth’s capacity to generate new oxygen. If you want to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide permanently, and not just cut short-term emissions, the best bet is to build up a big library at home, locking carbon into paper, or put plenty of asphalt on roads. These don’t sound like ‘green’ activities, but they are. You can cycle on the roads if it makes you feel better.