Category: CONSEQUENCES_DEFORESTATION FAQs interactive map

A: Deforestation is the destruction of forests in order to make the land available for other uses. Some common reasons for it are: to create room for cattle ranching, to harvest soy for feeding cattle, and to create ingredients for consumer items (such as the oil from palm trees). Currently, about 300 billion tons of carbon, 40 times the annual greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, is stored in trees, according to Greenpeace. Deforestation releases that stored carbon dioxide into the air. According to the 2010 Global Forest Resources Assessment, trees are releasing nearly a billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere per year as we cut down an estimated 18 million acres of forest, roughly the size of the country of Panama, each year. According to National Geographic, the world’s rain forests could completely vanish in a hundred years at the current rate of deforestation. More at Live Science

A: This exceedingly interesting (and interactive) set of maps published in 2016 don’t look good for New Orleans, Miami, Galveston, and Atlantic City which are feeling the effects already now. And, the rest of us aren’t exempt either! More at the New York Times