Whole islands are going up in a blaze, hundreds of species are going extinct, and Indonesia is producing more CO2 than the United States due to these fires happening now.
Borneo Island, third-largest island in the world, largest Island in the Asian region, home of one of two orangutan species, and exponentially more species-rich (with many endemic) than all of North America and Europe combined, is being burned to its death, never to make a comeback. For thousands...probably millions of years...Borneo remained lush and untouched by devastation. In fact, I remember that when I was a kid (not so long ago), it was still nearly completely lush and unexplored. Now, it is becoming palm oil plantations, livestock grazing lands, and towns...utterly destroyed and transformed into ugly human habitations which will no doubt be centers of poverty in the future. Let's look at some satellite images to get a sense of scale of the fires and smoke just on this one island of Borneo, although it is happening elsewhere like Sumatra Island and many other places as well.
Here is a map of southern Borneo (under Indonesian control):
https://goo.gl/maps/9mNztJFg8u52
Zoom out to see the whole island if you want. But get back to that view and then look at this satellite image of the same view:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=86847
This image shows red polygons showing the fires that were burning on just that single day (October 19th, 2015). And look at all of that smoke hovering over the rest of the south of the island. Remember that this is just the destruction wrought during _one day_. Imagine this happening day after day, for a whole season and more. Imagine how quickly it will take to destroy the entire Island. By the way, if you switch to the "Satellite View" of Google Maps, you'll see that all of the areas that are not deep, dark green have already been destroyed and turned into farmland or grazing land.
Now just look at a Google Map of Indonesia (or for that matter, most any other country) to see the damage that has already been done to the environment. I hope you all can "read" satellite images. Here is a hint... If it's a tropical wet island (such as Sumatra below), 100% of the island used to be _dark green_. Now, those patches of dark green that you see in between light green areas are the only natural places left. You can see that already 75% or more of the nature has already been eliminated. The only difference is that now, the pace is _even faster_.
https://goo.gl/maps/4gQH3J9PgiL2
But although natural areas that took millions of years to develop are now being destroyed in the space of a few decades, isn't that worth it for the sake of progress? I mean, just look:
http://rdemming.home.xs4all.nl/Travel/Indonesia/JakartaKota.jpg
Accompanying article:
Indonesia is burning. So why is the world looking away?
By: George Monbiot
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/30/indonesia-fires-disaster-21st-century-world-media
Borneo Island, third-largest island in the world, largest Island in the Asian region, home of one of two orangutan species, and exponentially more species-rich (with many endemic) than all of North America and Europe combined, is being burned to its death, never to make a comeback. For thousands...probably millions of years...Borneo remained lush and untouched by devastation. In fact, I remember that when I was a kid (not so long ago), it was still nearly completely lush and unexplored. Now, it is becoming palm oil plantations, livestock grazing lands, and towns...utterly destroyed and transformed into ugly human habitations which will no doubt be centers of poverty in the future. Let's look at some satellite images to get a sense of scale of the fires and smoke just on this one island of Borneo, although it is happening elsewhere like Sumatra Island and many other places as well.
Here is a map of southern Borneo (under Indonesian control):
https://goo.gl/maps/9mNztJFg8u52
Zoom out to see the whole island if you want. But get back to that view and then look at this satellite image of the same view:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=86847
This image shows red polygons showing the fires that were burning on just that single day (October 19th, 2015). And look at all of that smoke hovering over the rest of the south of the island. Remember that this is just the destruction wrought during _one day_. Imagine this happening day after day, for a whole season and more. Imagine how quickly it will take to destroy the entire Island. By the way, if you switch to the "Satellite View" of Google Maps, you'll see that all of the areas that are not deep, dark green have already been destroyed and turned into farmland or grazing land.
Now just look at a Google Map of Indonesia (or for that matter, most any other country) to see the damage that has already been done to the environment. I hope you all can "read" satellite images. Here is a hint... If it's a tropical wet island (such as Sumatra below), 100% of the island used to be _dark green_. Now, those patches of dark green that you see in between light green areas are the only natural places left. You can see that already 75% or more of the nature has already been eliminated. The only difference is that now, the pace is _even faster_.
https://goo.gl/maps/4gQH3J9PgiL2
But although natural areas that took millions of years to develop are now being destroyed in the space of a few decades, isn't that worth it for the sake of progress? I mean, just look:
http://rdemming.home.xs4all.nl/Travel/Indonesia/JakartaKota.jpg
Accompanying article:
Indonesia is burning. So why is the world looking away?
By: George Monbiot
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/30/indonesia-fires-disaster-21st-century-world-media
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