Environmentalists vs. DarwinIn an article by Axel Bugge two opinions on what should happen to the Amazon are discussed. One view is that it’s more important to cut down the Amazon due to the growing number of people living in Brazil. The other more vocal side wants to stop any cutting down of the Amazon but at least wants to minimize the amount that is being cut down every year. They don’t want to lose the Amazon that is nicknamed “the lungs of the planet” for all the oxygen that comes from there (Bugge 1).The Brazilian authorities and large percent of Brazilians know that they should limit the amount of Amazon that is being cut down. They cannot which comes from the problem of population explosion in Brazil. Brazils population has grown from 3.5 million people in 1970 to 20 million people nowadays. This would not be a problem but the Amazon represents more than half Brazil’s territory. Brazilian authorities also face pressures to develop the Amazon. There seems to be a $40 billion government economic development plan, which could possibility, destroy, or heavily damage, up to 42 percent of the Amazon (Bugge 2).On the other side of the argument we have mostly environmentally conscience people. These environmentalists are against the deforestation of the Amazon especially since a piece of the Amazon equal to Rhode Island in size is destroyed every year. This is not that much of the Amazon as a whole especially since the Amazon is an area larger then Western Europe. In the end the feeling is that if we keep cutting down the Amazon at this rate we are losing, as many environmentalists call it, the “lungs of the planet” since according to them the Amazon produces the vast majority of the earth’s oxygen (Bugge 1).A major problem of deforestation is the vast number of plants and animals living in the Amazon are not only being killed but also are dieing to points of extinction. Alre...
