Suffocation: Condemnation

Living without forests. Living in a trash-filled environment. Suffocating in in greenhouse gases, in the sorrows of the last generation. These circumstance will be the burden of the next generation if we don’t act now.

In the last few weeks alone, 84,000 fires have been documented in the Amazon rainforest, effecting the environment and the economy: yet social media coverage is limited. With fires all over: animals, plants, undiscovered objects and native clans are suffocating and dying out. Sadly, these fires started as a controlled choice to deforest, have become major forest-fire. Fires so big – they have been seen from the international space station. Yet, the media, logging companies and society want to hide away from our decision to deforest. [Field]

The Amazon rainforest – the essential lungs of planet earth – is in danger. A substantial amount of damage has been done to our largest oxygen producer, thus effecting the entire planet. These fires release more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, pushing global warming to the extent where –if nothing is done in the next few years – it will soon be irreversible.

This affects everything; lives, jobs and futures. Who needs a botanist if there are no trees? What happens to the animal food chain once an animal becomes extinct? But yet society is more concerned about the like button being removed from Instagram.

Furthering this, every single article covering the fires was posted this week but they have been ravaging for several weeks. This clearly shows that the coverage of this tremendous issue has been insufficient.

The lack of coverage was recognised by the World Wildlife Fund who tweeted, ‘There was a worldwide outcry when the Notre Dame cathedral hit fire. Why is there not the Dame level outrage for the fires destroying the #amazomrainforest?’ (Foxnews.com, 2019).

We as a society need to know the extent of the issue. We must not turn a build eye to the problem hoping it will go away, for future generations will pay. The coverage and lack of concern clearly demonstrates the issue is with humankind. Soon, we will be suffocating ourselves. The Amazon rainforest must be saved: not just to save lives, but to save the future of humanity.

Misa Hayward

Bribie Island State High School