Group 2

How people have negatively impacted Latin America
Jake M, Melissa M, Tyler F, Katie B

They have impacted it in many ways. One thing they have done is cut down the rain forests. That is a huge part of it. The rain forest is one of the world main suppliers of oxygen and medicine, and the Latin America people are cutting them down to get oil, land, or space to keep their cattle to sell.If that happens, less medicine can be found, and there might be a cure to cancer, or diabetes in there. Another thing that they have done to harm their environment is to produce part of global warming. Global warming is caused by fossil fuel burning, and industrial agriculture. Both cause millions of tons of greenhouse gases to be launched into the atmosphere, weakening the ozone layer, and changing the climate. This can and will change and destroy many ecosystems and populations if this continues. Large oil companies use millions of acres of rain forest to get oil. Another problem is that when companies drill for oil in the rain forests, the oil often gets spilled onto the soil and into the rivers and streams. These poisons can hurt the environment, and all the people that have lived in the rain forest. Fifty five square feet of the rain forest is being destroyed, for each quarter pound of a hamburger. Not only that, but since the soil in the rain forest does not contain many nutrients, after a few years of cattle ranching it becomes very difficult to grow anything on the land— even grass. What was once a beautiful, lush, living rain forest becomes a dry, desert-like wasteland. When this happens, even more rain forest is slashed and burned for cattle ranching. Temperatures in the troposphere have increased between .22 degrees F and .4 degrees .F per decade since 1979. The troposphere is the lower portion of the atmosphere.

Sources: Wikipedia; RAN.org