Lesson Eight: Wildfires
What the blazes is going on in Brazil and Australia
You’ve probably heard of the amazon wildfires from a few months ago, or the wildfires currently wreaking havoc in Australia.
If you’ve really got your ear to the ground, then you also heard about the Siberian wildfires in Russia.
In 2019, mainstream news has been covering wildfires in these areas:
When in reality, these are all of the active wildfires our planet is experiencing:
Wildfires can occur naturally - usually from lightning hitting a tree ⚡. It is estimated that 40% of them are human-caused in British Columbia. Aaaand approximately 90% of them are human-caused in the USA.
Human-caused fires result from:
There are also systemic issues that are human-influenced and even more to blame. For example, most of the wildfires are thought to have been started in The Amazon by farmers and loggers clearing land for crops or grazing. For similar reasons, deforestation is also another major contributor as it accelerates drying up biomass.
This is super important because The Amazon is the largest rainforest in 👏 the 👏 world 👏. It's a vital carbon store that slows down global warming. Aka The Amazon acts as our planet’s lungs!!!
In July 2019 alone, over 7,200 square miles of the Brazilian rainforest burned—an aggregated area nearly the size of New Jersey.
It’s also not looking very good for our friends down under. 🇦🇺
New South Wales and Queensland are seeing fires that haven’t been this bad in over 30 years. From this, 6 people have died, 600 homes have been destroyed, and at one point, firefighters were battling a fire front 6,000km long.
One animal species is being hit really hard by these Australian wildfires. Can you guess which one?
Unfortunately, there isn’t much we can directly do.
The worse climate change gets the more frequent and intense these wildfires will be. Continue educating yourself and educating others 👍Thankfully, people are coming together to lend their support - emotionally & financially.
If you are interested in doing something these organizations really need support. There are just a few out of many that need help, but they are the ones I personally believe will make some positive impacts for the natural species there.
Earth Alliance: Amazon Forest Fund (this is the one that Leo DiCaprio donated $5M to)
World Wide Fund: Wildfires Emergency Appeal
GOFUNDME: Help Thirsty Koalas Devastated by Recent Fires
As always, if you have any questions, let me know! I always love hearing from you 💚🌎
