Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Blog 6: Congo River Study Suggests Climate Change Began On A Local Level 3,500 Years Ago


Humans are the cause of climate change and have been creating it much longer than we have been burning fossil fuels. In the Congo River area/ Central Africa this was started when the agrarian revolution was brought to this area. They burned down forest to make room for farm lands. People are a big part of why the landscape of Central Africa has been changing. The Congo River now goes through the tropical forest and savannas. Many scientists use to believe that climate change was the only cause of why there were savannas, but after a recent study it showed that because people started farming near the river and it began to be filled with “muck” and without the increase of rainfall, it increase weathering. Many of the plants in this area need a lot of sunlight, which does mean that they would need to cut down more forest. Forests are then used for charcoal and fuels for fires. Climate Change in this area was happening many years ago and it still continues to this day.  

Now that finally climate change has become a big issue it is interesting to see that this was started thousands of years ago. The sad thing is that we still continue to add to climate change and we have seen many more areas that are changing due to our involvement. I think that Central Africa is a great place to see these changes and we can notice that everything we do has an effect on the world. We need to have better care of our environment if we are making this big of a change. Certain areas need to be left alone and to only grow natural plants to preserve the area. We also need to conserve forests and not burn them down. Burning things just adds more CO2 into the atmosphere and does not help anyone at all. By the next thousands year I hope that there has been some kind of change and we have not completely lost land all together.

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