Land Use and Global Warming

Written By Live Naturally
Dated: July 15, 2009

View More Articles

Print Friendly Page

The governments of the world now have an environment ministry, because it is widely recognized that urgent steps must be taken to protect the ecology, because without this, human and other forms of life as we know it now could be wiped out forever. It is quite true that the pollution and global warming combined with deforestation has indeed wiped out many forms of flora and fauna from the very face of the earth. The land, the sea and the air has been affected in such severity that many people say that the process is quite irreversible. Many people think that we have crossed the tipping point of no return and no matter what we do now, the earth clock is ticking towards imminent and quickly approaching doom.
Land use is one of the most important aspects of human life. Most of the food that we consume comes from the land, because marine food is but on small part of total calorific consumption that helps to keep humans and other creatures alive. The plants create edible materials through photosynthesis which are in turn consumed by herbivores, then carnivores and omnivores. It has been from time immemorial that humans are tilling the land to grow the various types of staple and other foods that we can live on. Now with the burgeoning population, the pressure on land is increasing incessantly. There are more than 6 billion souls that inhabit the earth at his point in time with over a billion each in China and India itself. Naturally, land usage patterns are changing due to this heavy and unbridled population growth.
When land usage becomes an issue it is because of the wide spread denudation of land and the rampant deforestation that is occurring everywhere. Jungles and forests are being cut down all the time to bring more and more land area under cultivation or housing. A half a century back, more than 50% of India was under forests, which has now shrunk to around 21% overall. Many species like the tiger as well as cheetah are on the verge of or already become extinct. Naturally, with the removal of forests, the rain attracting quality of green cover is vanishing leading to droughts, famines and arid zones or desertification. Green cover also has the unique quality of absorbing the carbon dioxide from the air, which is no longer possible with loss of forests. This leads to global warming and increased depletion of the all-important ozone layer that is the protective covering in the earth’s atmosphere.
Increased mechanization and use of pesticides and insecticides is also fast depleting the quality of the soil. Top soil is getting blown away and lost forever, taking with it the fertility of land. As we use ever more chemical fertilizers, the soil gets leeched and within some years becomes unfit for use. This means that more forests have to be cut down to bring greater areas under cultivation. Again, because of high population pressure, housing schemes and plots are encroaching on forested areas leading thus to global warming too.