Rain forests fall at 'alarming' rate

by way of clarification - when I talk/write about fear mongers, I'm talking about people who preach fear in such a way as to overstate a threat, usually for their own selfish reasons, but sometimes just through falling prey to the misinformation and propaganda of others. however, there are real dangers and threats that must be addressed and the people who are shouting those warnings are not fear mongers since the dangers are real and the concern justified - and the agenda is unselfish - that's why I continue to try to expose fear mongers when I encounter them - to distinguish them from those who are desperately trying to convey important messages to an unheeding world. I'm including an excerpt from an article about shrinking rainforests below to call attention to a real threat and to show why john mccain's statement quoted in my previous post is so repugnant to me. there are clearly many more important challenges facing the world during this coming century than "radical Islamic extremism".

the following is from Rain forests fall at 'alarming' rate.

From 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.

The burning or rotting of trees that comes with deforestation — at the hands of ranchers, farmers, timbermen — sends more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all the world's planes, trains, trucks and automobiles. Forest destruction accounts for about 20 percent of manmade emissions, second only to burning of fossil fuels for electricity and heat. Conversely, healthy forests absorb carbon dioxide and store carbon.

"The stakes are so dire that if we don't start turning this around in the next 10 years, the extinction crisis and the climate crisis will begin to spiral out of control," said Roman Paul Czebiniak, a forest expert with Greenpeace International. "It's a very big deal."