Sentences with phrase «widespread deforestation in»

This growth rate, more than double that of the previous decade, is largely a result of China's logging ban, a policy enacted after widespread deforestation in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River valley left the countryside vulnerable to severe floods in 1998.

Despite major gains in some areas, the world's sylvan balance sheet still bleeds trees, owing to widespread deforestation in the tropics.

Not exact matches

The same experts found that widespread vegetarianism could cut environmental costs by $ 35 billion, as meat's role in exacerbating climate change, as well as its contribution to soil erosion, water pollution, deforestation, and biodiversity loss, is well documented.

Thus we live now with the fruits of the actions of early industrial capitalism, nuclear weapons used in World War II, the Green Revolution, widespread deforestation.

However, critics argue that organic agriculture may have lower yields and would therefore need more land to produce the same amount of food as conventional farms, resulting in more widespread deforestation and biodiversity loss, and thus undermining the environmental benefits of organic practices5.

In an attempt to improve environmental governance of Sumatra's once - extensive tropical forests, a publicly accessible Web site showing detailed maps of widespread deforestation on the Indonesian island over the past few decades has just been launched.

Meanwhile, researchers probing the climate in pre-Columbian Central America figure that widespread deforestation had a hand in the droughts thought to have toppled the Mayan, Toltec and Aztec civilizations.

Deforestation may have far greater consequences for climate change in some soils than in others, according to new research led by Yale University scientists — a finding that could provide critical insights into which ecosystems must be managed with extra care because they are vulnerable to biodiversity loss and which ecosystems are more resilient to widespread tree removal.

These include widespread destruction of ecosystems, especially through deforestation, climatic instability, and contamination in the soils and waters that all contribute to excruciating poverty.

We believe that negative synergies between deforestation, climate change, and widespread use of fire indicate a tipping point for the Amazon system to flip to non-forest ecosystems in eastern, southern and central Amazonia at 20 - 25 % deforestation.

Even after decades of increasingly dire warnings, the US has still not passed comprehensive federal legislation to combat global warming; Canada has abandoned past pledges in order to exploit its emissions - heavy tar sands; China continues to depend on coal for its energy production; Indonesia's effort to stem widespread deforestation is facing stiff resistance from industry; Europe is mulling pulling back on its more ambitious cuts if other nations do not join it; northern nations are scrambling to exploit the melting Arctic for untapped oil and gas reserves; and fossil fuels continue to be subsidized worldwide to the tune of $ 400 billion.

In Europe there was also the beginning of widespread deforestation as Bronze Age human communities started to use charcoal for smelting and extended agriculture to tilling and planting.

As traditionally practiced in southeast Asia, oil palm cultivation is responsible for widespread deforestation that reduces biodiversity, degrades important ecological services, worsens climate change, and traps workers in inequitable conditions sometimes analogous to slavery.

Recent studies show that deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon dropped by roughly 75 percent in the past five years, thanks to industry efforts to curb deforestation and grow crops elsewhere, widespread consumer pressure to produce deforestation - free agricultural products, and better enforcement of existing forest laws.

Large - scale deforestation in the tropics could drive significant and widespread shifts in rainfall distribution and temperatures, potentially affecting agriculture both locally and far from where forest loss is occurring, concludes a study published today in Nature Climate Change.

Major Environmental Issues: Natural fresh water resources scarce and polluted in north, inaccessible and poor quality in center and extreme southeast; raw sewage and industrial effluents polluting rivers in urban areas; deforestation; widespread erosion; desertification; serious air pollution in the national capital and urban centers along US - Mexico border.

Rainforest destruction in the tropics could hurt farmers in Europe, U.S. Large - scale deforestation in the tropics could drive significant and widespread shifts in rainfall distribution and temperatures, potentially affecting agriculture...

Several climate models that scientists use to understand the impact of carbon emissions from sources such as the burning of fossil fuels and widespread deforestation have linked changes in atmospheric chemistry with bumps in tree growth.