Childhood’s End was the name of a novel by Arthur C. Clarke the great British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist and inventor of the geo-stationary communications satellite. I now feel that this is an appropiate name for the era we are now in. We are standing by like children watching the destruction of our home world. Editor.Rain Forests Fall at ‘Alarming’ Rate
by Edward Harris
ABO EBAM, Nigeria — In the gloomy shade deep in Africa’s rain forest, the noontime silence was pierced by the whine of a far-off chain saw. It was the sound of destruction, echoed from wood to wood, continent to continent, in the tropical belt that circles the globe.0203 01From Brazil to central Africa to once-lush islands in Asia’s archipelagos, human encroachment is shrinking the world’s rain forests.
The alarm was sounded decades ago by environmentalists - and was little heeded. The picture, meanwhile, has changed: Africa is now a leader in destructiveness. The numbers have changed: U.N. specialists estimate 60 acres of tropical forest are felled worldwide every minute, up from 50 a generation back. And the fears have changed.
Experts still warn of extinction of animal and plant life, of the loss of forest peoples’ livelihoods, of soil erosion and other damage. But scientists today worry urgently about something else: the fateful feedback link of trees and climate.
Global warming is expected to dry up and kill off vast tracts of rain forest, and dying forests will feed global warming.
“If we lose forests, we lose the fight against climate change,” declared more than 300 scientists, conservation groups, religious leaders and others in an appeal for action at December’s climate conference in Bali, Indonesia. More >>>
