Like modern loggers, did he shout 'jobs, not trees!'", writes Diamond, who calls it one of the world's most extreme examples of deforestation.
As Brazil responds to extreme drought, high-stakes deforestation, and pollution and human rights challenges, and as the country steps up to the world stage for the Olympics, its decisions will ripple not only to neighboring countries and the BRICs, but throughout the world.
Extreme weather, problems with food supply, deforestation.
We face daunting challenges, nationally and globally: overpopulation, climate destabilization, deforestation, peak oil, poverty, hunger, extreme economic disparities, and religious extremism.
The questionnaire was specific to cloudburst and extreme rainfall events, hazards, flash floods, landslide, deforestation, slope cutting and tourism and their management.
In the more adverse "disaster" scenario — which entails vast deforestation, dramatic biodiversity declines and increasing extreme weather — the global index falls by 15 percent, with the deepest losses felt in poor regions.
In the extreme case of a complete stop in tropical deforestation from today, the forest carbon amount would for example increase by up to 230 GtC within 100 years.
The results suggest that a summation of anthropogenic interferences (deforestation, urbanization and soil degradation) led to an increase of extreme hydrological events.
These are complemented by effects of alterations of land use, such as deforestation, intensive agriculture and incidence of fire, with the most extreme effects produced by building activity and urbanisation.
Luckily, climate-smart adaptation is possible, with encouraging examples already being drawn from agriculture and forestry: new plantations, as well as reduced deforestation, will bind CO2 while helping local farmers to withstand extreme weather conditions.
