Rainforests are slowly being diminished due to humans and globalization. Humans have been developing quite rapidly in many aspects of daily human life. This development has caused urbanization to occur, making it harder and harder for humans to accommodate. Every few seconds there are plans for new buildings to be built, new websites to put up, and more people looking for a house to live in. We have begun cutting down trees in order to make more homes so that urbanization won’t take its toll upon our countries and have us overpopulate. However, it has left our rainforests in turmoil. The consequences of cutting down these trees have already begun such as rising CO2 levels and many endangered species soon to become extinct. Humans have contributed greatly to the destruction of the rainforests across the globe because of their need for urbanization, which has caused them to use deforestation, destroy habitats, and cause problems for the climate like global warming.

Urbanization is the social process whereby cities grow and societies become more urban. This process has caused a great deal of problems for many countries across the globe. Populations are growing and cities are in need of new structures and homes to be built. This great demand can be solved quite quickly, but it has left our world damaged. The need for new supplies, such as wood, is growing rapidly and soon many of our forests will have gone through deforestation. This is a big problem for our planet. Deforestation is a great contributor to the soaring CO2 levels on Earth today. Many of these forests also go through soil erosion and become wastelands if they are not reforested. Deforestation has also lowered the amounts of water on the surface, in the soil, and in the atmosphere. Trees extract groundwater and release into the atmosphere and once the trees are removed, the water can no longer be evaporated, resulting in a drier climate or even a drought.

Deforestation has destroyed biodiversity. Rainforests, especially, carry many homes for animals within them. Once these trees are taken away, most of the habitat is destroyed, leaving many animals without homes. The animals without their homes become endangered because of the lack of protection from predators and lack of required supplies they need to survive. With these animals on the brink of extinction, our economy and survival also suffers. Losing these key pieces in our web of life will cause irreparable damage to our lives. Extinct of one animal may lead extinct of several other animals, which will then lead back to us. The trees also provide us with medicines and remedies for diseases. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to come up with vaccines or cures to harmful illnesses and diseases, such as the flu.

Our rainforests play a big role on Earth and this constant destruction will cause many problems for human life everywhere. Our climate, our biodiversity, and our lives are all affected by this act. Humans must realize that we are not being stewards of the Earth by destroying our rainforests and that it is essential that we begin the process of reforestation of the forests that are on the verge of becoming wastelands.