Exploring the Rainforest

Just a few thousand years ago, a belt of rainforests, covering some five billion acres (14% of the planet's surface) stretched around the equator. Wherever there was sufficient rainfall and high enough temperatures there was rainforest. Over half the total area has now been destroyed, much of it in the past few hundred years with the rate accelerating after the end of WWII.

Many scientists believe that widespread burning of tropical forests releases large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 15% in the past century (with about half of this occurring since 1958), and forest clearance may account for half of that gain. As carbon dioxide, along with other atmospheric elements, traps heat that would otherwise escape into space, temperatures may rise. Rainfall patterns would change and ocean levels would rise as the polar ice packs melt. In many areas, deforestation has already had an adverse effect on the environment. Although many uncertainties remain about the "greenhouse effect," one certainty is that by the time the effects are apparent they will be irreversible.

I took this photo in Cirebon, Java. These logs were brought in from Kalimantan (Borneo)

There is an Android version and an iTunes version.

St. John Visitors:

Please check out Explore St. John, our new travel app to St. John, which supplies comprehensive information (useful for residents and visitors alike) along with pictures, maps and links to hundreds of videos and relevant websites.

iPhone/iPad/iPodTouch version

Android version

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